Az-Zumar · Makki · ayah 15 of 75

Az-Zumar 39:15

فَٱعْبُدُوا۟ مَا شِئْتُم مِّن دُونِهِۦ ۗ قُلْ إِنَّ ٱلْخَـٰسِرِينَ ٱلَّذِينَ خَسِرُوٓا۟ أَنفُسَهُمْ وَأَهْلِيهِمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ ۗ أَلَا ذَٰلِكَ هُوَ ٱلْخُسْرَانُ ٱلْمُبِينُ

“So worship what you will besides Him." Say, "Indeed, the losers are the ones who will lose themselves and their families on the Day of Resurrection. Unquestionably, that is the manifest loss."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Worship what you like, the Messenger tells those who refuse, but the real losers lose their selves and their families on the Day.

A reflection

Capital spent, debt acquired

Khusr, loss, is a market word. The lexicons say its home is trade: the shrinking of a trader's capital, the money he started with. A deal is khāsira when it eats what you put in. But they widen the picture at once. A person can lose what he owns, money and standing. He can also lose what he is: health, reason, faith, and the reward of his deeds.

One commentary builds the whole ayah on this picture. Allah gave each person life, a mind and the ability to act. These are the capital. Life is given so that a good life in the Hereafter can be earned with it. The mind's first certainties are capital, and reasoning from them is trade. Strength to act is capital, and good deeds are the profit.

Whoever spends a lifetime and gains neither knowledge of the truth nor any good deed has lost the profit. At death the capital itself is gone. That is loss. But the commentary goes further. These people did not merely fail to profit. They spent their minds building arguments for falsehood and their strength on harm. They exhausted themselves, lost their capital, and turned their effort into debt.

Picture a young man who inherits his grandfather's hardware shop and a modest sum in the bank. Within five years he has borrowed against the shop to fund a scheme a friend promised would double his money. The scheme collapses. He is left with no shop, no savings, and loans he will be paying for a decade. He did not just fail to grow the inheritance. He turned it into a burden.

The ayah asks a trader's question of every life. What were you given, and what are you leaving with?

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.