Sad · Makki · ayah 55 of 88

Sad 38:55

هَـٰذَا ۚ وَإِنَّ لِلطَّـٰغِينَ لَشَرَّ مَـَٔابٍ

“This [is so]. But indeed, for the transgressors is an evil place of return -”

Saheeh International

Essence

One word, 'This', closes the scene of the Garden; then the surah turns: those who overflowed their limits come home too, to the worst return.

A reflection

Returners, and those who are returned

A spaniel goes missing on the moors above a village. On the third evening she scratches at the back door, thin and muddy, having found her own way. The same week a neighbour's dog is collected from the council pound in the back of a van. Both dogs end up in their own kitchens. Only one of them came home.

Now listen to how often this surah uses the root of returning. Dāwūd is awwāb, one who keeps turning back (38:17). Even the birds gathered round him are awwāb, echoing his praise (38:19). Sulaymān is awwāb (38:30). Ayyūb, after years of illness, is awwāb (38:44). Then comes the reward: ḥusn maʾāb, a beautiful return, for Dāwūd (38:25), for Sulaymān (38:40) and for all the mindful (38:49).

The lexicons say this root means returning, used of a living being that comes back. A traveller arriving home to his family was āyib. Awwāb, on an intensive pattern, is not someone who returned once. It is someone who keeps returning: he slips, turns back, slips, and turns back again.

Then this ayah. The same word, maʾāb, is given to the ṭāghīn. One commentator notes that it is set directly against the good return of ayah 49. Everyone in this surah has a maʾāb. Nobody avoids going back to Allah.

So the question the surah leaves is not whether you will return. It is whether you will arrive as a returner. The prophets practised the journey home many times a day. They turned back after every slip, so the last return was simply the final step of a long habit. The ṭāghīn never once turned round. Their only return is the one that cannot be refused.

Every astaghfiru-llāh is a small homecoming. It is practice for arriving on your own feet, rather than being fetched.

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.