Ghafir · Makki · ayah 46 of 85

Ghafir 40:46

ٱلنَّارُ يُعْرَضُونَ عَلَيْهَا غُدُوًّا وَعَشِيًّا ۖ وَيَوْمَ تَقُومُ ٱلسَّاعَةُ أَدْخِلُوٓا۟ ءَالَ فِرْعَوْنَ أَشَدَّ ٱلْعَذَابِ

“The Fire; they are exposed to it morning and evening.[1374] And the Day the Hour appears [it will be said], "Make the people of Pharaoh enter the severest punishment."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Pharaoh's people, long drowned, are set before the Fire each morning and evening; when the Hour comes, they enter its harshest depth.

A reflection

Morning and evening, still

Two small words carry the weight of this ayah: ghuduwwan wa-ʿashiyyā. Morning and evening.

The first word has a plain, working picture in the lexicons. Ghudwa is the stretch between the dawn prayer and sunrise, the hour when a man sets out. The second, ʿashiyy, is the late part of the day, from the sun's decline towards night. Between them sits a whole working life: leaving the house and coming home.

That was the rhythm Pharaoh's people knew. They rose to serve a king who called himself lord, built for him, marched for him, and came home at dusk. Now the same two hours remain, emptied of everything else. They are set before the Fire in the morning and set before it again in the evening.

The commentaries differ on the detail. Some early explainers held that it lasts as long as this world lasts. One explains the morning and evening as the measures of days as we count them. Another suggests the two words may simply mean always, as people say morning and evening to mean without a break. The most careful view keeps to the plain wording: they are set before it morning and evening, and we are not told more.

One classical commentary preserves a striking habit of the Companion Abu Hurayra. Each morning, the report says, he would call out. We have reached the morning, praise be to Allah, and Pharaoh's people have been set before the Fire. Each evening he said the same. Anyone who heard him sought refuge in Allah from the Fire.

An elderly man in a care home stops wearing a watch. He knows the time by the medicine round, at eight in the morning and eight at night. The wheels in the corridor tell him the day is turning.

The ayah does something similar to its reader. Every sunrise and every dusk, somewhere, a reckoning is already running. Abu Hurayra let his own mornings remind him. Ours could do the same.

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.