As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 99 of 182

As-Saffat 37:99

وَقَالَ إِنِّى ذَاهِبٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّى سَيَهْدِينِ

“And [then] he said, "Indeed, I will go to [where I am ordered by] my Lord; He will guide me.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Saved from the fire and done with his people's stubbornness, Ibrahim says: I am going to my Lord, and He will guide me.

A reflection

Going to my Lord: with the feet or the heart?

Innī dhāhibun ilā rabbī: I am going to my Lord. It is a strange sentence if you stop and hear it. Allah is not in a place you can walk to. So what kind of going is this?

The commentaries give three readings, and together they open the phrase wide. The first, which one early commentator preferred, is emigration. Ibrahim left his people's land for a place where he could worship freely. Another ayah says it plainly: 'I am emigrating to my Lord' (29:26). On this reading, going to the place Allah commanded is going to Allah.

The second reading is inward. An early authority said: going with my deeds, my heart and my intention. Ibrahim was turning his whole self towards his Lord, whatever happened to his body.

The third comes from an early report preserved in the commentaries. It places the sentence earlier, at the moment they were about to throw him into the fire. Then 'going to my Lord' would mean going to death, to meet Him.

The lexicons add a layer. The root of dhāhib gives two pictures: going and departing, and, in a separate branch, gold and brightness. The 'going' sense is the plain established one here. You hear it in the Quran's own question to every reader: fa-ayna tadhhabūn, so where are you going? (81:26).

Notice that the three readings are not rivals. Ibrahim was ready to die, ready to move, and already moving inwardly. The body might travel or burn. The direction did not change.

That is perhaps the deepest sense of the phrase. A believer's life is a single journey with a single destination. Cities change, jobs change, people come and go. The going is always to Him.

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.