Sad · Makki · ayah 52 of 88

Sad 38:52

۞ وَعِندَهُمْ قَـٰصِرَٰتُ ٱلطَّرْفِ أَتْرَابٌ

“And with them will be women limiting [their] glances[1330] and of equal age.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Beside them are companions whose eyes rest on them alone, peers in age, with no rivalry and nobody left behind.

A reflection

The ninety-nine and the one

This surah has already told a story about eyes that wandered. Two men climbed into Dawud's chamber with a dispute. One said: this is my brother. He has ninety-nine ewes, and I have one. Yet he said, hand her over to me, and he overpowered me in argument (38:23).

Dawud's verdict went beyond the two of them. 'Many partners wrong one another, except those who believe and do good, and how few they are' (38:24). The word for partners there pictures a household eating from one pot. People share a life, a business or a flock, and still one of them keeps looking at what the other has.

That is the disease of this world's companionship. It is rarely about need. The brother had ninety-nine. His eye simply would not stop at his own.

Now read this ayah against that story. Those beside the people of the Garden are qāṣirātu al-ṭarf: their gaze stops short. It is held where it belongs and does not reach for what is elsewhere. And they are atrāb: peers, equals, born as it were in the same season. Nobody there has ninety-nine against another's one.

The surah has quietly answered its own story. Partnership in this world is shadowed by the wandering eye and by inequality. In the Garden both are removed together. The eye rests, and nobody stands above anybody.

There is a test here for the reader now. The brother in the story did not think of himself as a thief. He made a reasonable-sounding request, and he argued it well. Envy almost never introduces itself by name. It says: surely it would make more sense if that were mine.

The ego is always comparing flocks. The believers Dawud praised, 'and how few they are', are the ones who notice the comparison starting and stop it. They are practising now, in small ways, the restful eye of the Garden.

So when you next catch yourself counting someone else's ewes, remember which ayah you want to be described by. The one about partners who wrong each other, or the one about eyes that rest.

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.