Sad · Makki · ayah 60 of 88

Sad 38:60

قَالُوا۟ بَلْ أَنتُمْ لَا مَرْحَبًۢا بِكُمْ ۖ أَنتُمْ قَدَّمْتُمُوهُ لَنَا ۖ فَبِئْسَ ٱلْقَرَارُ

“They will say, "Nor you! No welcome for you. You, [our leaders], brought this upon us, and wretched is the settlement."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Shoved into the Fire after their leaders, the followers throw the curse back: no room for you; you sent this ahead for us.

A reflection

No room for you, in a place with no room

Marḥaban is one of the warmest words in Arabic, and people still say it at the door. Its root is raḥb, wide open space. The lexicons record what the greeting meant: you have arrived at roominess, not at a narrow place, so be at ease. The open court in front of a mosque was its raḥba, the ground where people could spread out.

So the curse in this ayah is exact. Lā marḥaban bikum: may there be no room for you. The early explanations spell it out. May your dwellings not widen for you, may the earth not open out around you.

Now notice where it is said. The surah has just called the Fire a bed, mihād, that they lie on (38:56). It is the tightest place a person could ever be. And there, in the narrowest place there will ever be, people still spend breath refusing each other room.

Set it beside the other homecoming in this passage. The righteous arrive at 'gardens of permanence, their doors opened for them' (38:50). Elsewhere their keepers meet them at the gates: 'peace be upon you, you have done well, so enter' (39:73). One crowd is met with salām. The other meets itself with lā marḥaban. One early explanation puts it bluntly: instead of greeting each other, they curse each other.

A pre-Islamic poet once used the same words to refuse a welcome to tomorrow itself, if tomorrow was the day loved ones parted. That is the weight of the phrase. It is the welcome you withhold from what you dread.

Think of a packed late train. A woman lifts her shopping onto her lap so a nurse still in scrubs can sit. Neither of them speaks. It costs her a little comfort and nothing else. That small shuffle is marḥaban without the word: here, there is room for you.

The Quran asks for exactly this in this life. 'When you are told to make room in gatherings, make room; Allah will make room for you' (58:11). The ayah of the Fire is the same lesson seen from the far end. A heart that would not make room for anyone ends where no one makes room for it.

So the question is close to home. Whom do I make room for, at my table, in my plans, in my patience?

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.