Ghafir · Makki · ayah 39 of 85

Ghafir 40:39

يَـٰقَوْمِ إِنَّمَا هَـٰذِهِ ٱلْحَيَوٰةُ ٱلدُّنْيَا مَتَـٰعٌ وَإِنَّ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةَ هِىَ دَارُ ٱلْقَرَارِ

“O my people, this worldly life is only [temporary] enjoyment, and indeed, the Hereafter - that is the home of [permanent] settlement.”

Saheeh International

Essence

This life is the sun at its height, real and warm and already turning, while the hereafter is the home where everything finally stays still.

A reflection

Not nothing, but not home

Many of us carry a picture of piety that quietly despises the world. The truly religious, we assume, take no pleasure in food or marriage or a good day's work. Enjoyment itself is suspect.

The believer does not say that. He does not call this life bāṭil, false, or lā shayʾ, nothing. He calls it matāʿ. Something genuinely enjoyed, for a while.

One spiritual commentary takes this word and builds on it. The pleasures of this world are matāʿ, it says, and a means to the pleasures of the hereafter. That is why they were created. So any pleasure that helps a person towards the hereafter is not blamed. It is praised, to the degree that it leads there.

It then quotes a hadith in Sahih Muslim. The Prophet ﷺ said: the world is enjoyment, and the best enjoyment of the world is a righteous wife. The same word, matāʿ, is used. The Prophet ﷺ did not deny the world its sweetness. He pointed to the sweetest thing in it.

A newly practising student sells her bicycle and stops going out with friends, sure that every pleasure is a test she is failing. An aunt sits with her and reads her that hadith. The girl is surprised to find the world described as enjoyment by the one she follows.

The ayah's warning is not that the world is worthless. It is that the world is not home. Enjoy it as provision on a road, and it will carry you. Mistake it for the house, and it will leave you standing in the street.

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.