An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 124 of 176

An-Nisa 4:124

وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِنَ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ مِن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ يَدْخُلُونَ ٱلْجَنَّةَ وَلَا يُظْلَمُونَ نَقِيرًا

“And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer - those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Any believer, man or woman, who does what good they can will enter Paradise; not even a date-stone's groove of reward is withheld.

A reflection

Male or female: one scale

The ayah did not need to say 'male or female'. 'Whoever does righteous deeds' already covers everyone. So why spell it out?

One classical commentator offers a reason rooted in the time. Naming both, he suggests, may rebuke the idolaters of that society, who did away with their baby daughters and shut women out of inheritance. Earlier in this very surah, women were given a fixed share of inheritance (4:7). Elsewhere the Quran says the buried girl will be asked for what sin she was killed (81:8-9). Into that world came a sentence that put a woman's deeds on exactly the same scale as a man's.

Remember, too, how close this ayah sits to 4:117, which mocked idols with female names. Any reader who wondered whether the Quran looks down on women gets the answer seven ayat later. Same reward. Same entry. Same guarantee against being wronged.

The Quran says it in other places as well. 'I do not let the work of any worker among you go to waste, male or female; you are of one another' (3:195).

Picture a twelve-year-old girl reading her town's local history book for a school project. Forty pages of mill owners and mayors. Then one line about the soup kitchens that fed the town through two hard winters: 'assisted by ladies of the parish'. No names. She closes the book, annoyed.

Human records forget. Allah's does not. Every meal those women ladled, every night they stayed up, is written in the same hand as any mayor's deed.

If you are a woman whose work goes uncredited, this ayah is addressed to you by name. And if you are a man who has ever ranked a woman's work lower, it corrects you.

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.