Az-Zumar · Makki · ayah 35 of 75

Az-Zumar 39:35

لِيُكَفِّرَ ٱللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ أَسْوَأَ ٱلَّذِى عَمِلُوا۟ وَيَجْزِيَهُمْ أَجْرَهُم بِأَحْسَنِ ٱلَّذِى كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ

“That Allāh may remove from them the worst of what they did and reward them their due for the best of what they used to do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah covers the worst of what the truthful did and repays all their deeds at the level of their best.

A reflection

Covered like seed under earth

The verb is yukaffira, from k-f-r. Its one meaning is covering. The Arabs called a farmer kāfir because he hides the seed under the earth. Night was kāfir because its darkness covers everything. Ash that the wind had buried in dust was makfūr. This image is established in the lexicons. The same root gives kufr, covering the truth, and kaffāra, expiation: covering a sin until it is as if it had not been.

The ayah uses the second form, kaffara, which intensifies: to cover thoroughly. Allah does not merely overlook the deeds. He buries them.

Picture a family garden after a bonfire. A scorched black circle sits in the middle of the lawn for weeks. In autumn the father lifts the burnt turf and lays fresh soil and seed. By the next summer the children play on that spot, and nobody can say exactly where the fire was.

That is the picture of takfīr. The deed happened. The ground remembers nothing of it.

There is a quiet irony in the root. The same letters that name the denier's sin, covering the truth, also name Allah's mercy, covering the sinner's faults. One covers what should be seen. The Other covers what should be forgotten. A person chooses which covering they will live under.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.