Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 38 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:38

حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا جَآءَنَا قَالَ يَـٰلَيْتَ بَيْنِى وَبَيْنَكَ بُعْدَ ٱلْمَشْرِقَيْنِ فَبِئْسَ ٱلْقَرِينُ

“Until, when he comes to Us [at Judgement], he says [to his companion], "How I wish there was between me and you the distance between the east and west; and what a wretched companion."”

Saheeh International

Essence

The companion who felt like a guide all his life is, at the arrival, the one he wants as far away as east from west.

A reflection

Chained together, wishing for the width of the world

There are two well-known readings of the verb at the start of this ayah. Most reciters read jāʾanā: when he comes to Us. Others read jāʾānā: when the two of them come to Us. One commentary adds what the second reading pictures. The man and his companion arrive bound in a single chain.

Now listen to what he says. Yā layta baynī wa-baynaka buʿda al-mashriqayn: if only there were between me and you the distance of the two easts. The commentaries mostly explain it as east and west, the furthest apart two points can be. One says the distance of each from the other is the very picture of utmost distance.

So the scene holds a terrible contrast. Two figures joined so close they share a chain. And one of them wishing for the whole width of the world between them.

The root of buʿd, distance, has a mournful history. Mourners at a grave would call to the dead: do not be far. Distance was where the dead went. Now the man wants that distance, desperately, from the one he once could not do without. It is too late to have it.

A woman stays in a business partnership she knows is crooked, because the money is good. When the fraud is uncovered, they are charged together. In the dock she sits a foot from him, unable to look at him, unable to move away.

The ayah is written so that we might want that distance now, while it can still be had. Here, the chain is not yet forged. A single sincere turning back to the reminder of the Merciful puts east and west between us and what would ruin us.

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.