As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 68 of 182

As-Saffat 37:68

ثُمَّ إِنَّ مَرْجِعَهُمْ لَإِلَى ٱلْجَحِيمِ

“Then indeed, their return will be to the Hellfire.”

Saheeh International

Essence

After the bitter meal and the scalding drink, they are taken back, and the place they return to, the only home left, is the blaze.

A reflection

A return that is not to Him

The word at the centre of this ayah is marjiʿ, a place of return. The root behind it is one of the warmest in the Arabic language.

The lexicons say it means going back to the point where you began. A traveller coming home. Birds coming back after migrating. The cud a camel chews again. The sky is called 'the returner' (86:11), because it pours rain, then comes back and pours again. An answer to a letter is a rajʿ, words sent back. The root is full of homecoming.

And the Quran uses this exact word, marjiʿ, again and again for the greatest homecoming of all. 'To Allah is your return, all of you' (5:48). 'Then to your Lord is your return' (6:164). 'To Him is your return, all together' (10:4). In verse after verse, the return of every soul is to its Lord.

Then comes this ayah. Thumma inna marjiʿahum la-ilā al-jaḥīm: then their return is to the blaze. The same noun, with two emphatic markers, and a different destination.

It is a chilling substitution. The place they come back to, the nearest thing they now have to a home, is the fire. Every cycle of the bitter food and the scalding drink ends with a homecoming to the blaze.

The lesson cuts both ways. Everyone has a marjiʿ. Every life has some place it keeps returning to when the day is done: a habit, a person, a mood, a prayer mat, a grievance. That place is quietly shaping who we are becoming, one return at a time.

The believer's whole effort is to make sure that the place they keep coming back to in this life is Allah. Then, when the final return comes, it will not be a stranger's door. It will be the door they had been walking to all along.

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.