As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 61 of 182

As-Saffat 37:61

لِمِثْلِ هَـٰذَا فَلْيَعْمَلِ ٱلْعَـٰمِلُونَ

“For the like of this let the workers [on earth] work.”

Saheeh International

Essence

After showing the whole scene, the Quran draws one line from it: this is what work is for.

A reflection

Work that does not vanish

A woman spends her working days entering figures into a system. Each evening she logs off and cannot point to a single thing she made. The figures go somewhere. Nobody tells her where. She is paid, and she is tired, and on the bus home she sometimes wonders what any of it is for.

That question, what is it for, haunts a great deal of modern work. People are busier than ever, and many feel their effort disappears without a trace.

This ayah answers the question directly. Li-mithli hādhā fa-l-yaʿmali al-ʿāmilūna: for the like of this, let the workers work. 'This' is everything the passage has just shown. Safety from the Fire, life with no further death, the Garden and its company. The commentaries gloss it as the command to work in this world in order to reach that in the next.

Notice who benefits. Allah does not need the work. I did not create jinn and humans except to worship Me; I want no provision from them (51:56-57). Whoever strives, strives only for himself; Allah is free of need of the worlds (29:6). The work is commanded for the worker's sake.

That changes what counts. The figures the woman enters can be done honestly, carefully, for His sake. Then they are no longer lost. They are recorded where nothing is lost. Her patience on the bus counts. So does her kindness to the colleague nobody likes, and her prayer squeezed into a lunch break. All of it is work, in the sense of this ayah.

The hunger for meaningful work is real. The ayah does not mock it. It points it somewhere that can satisfy it.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.