Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 39 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:39

وَلَن يَنفَعَكُمُ ٱلْيَوْمَ إِذ ظَّلَمْتُمْ أَنَّكُمْ فِى ٱلْعَذَابِ مُشْتَرِكُونَ

“And never will it benefit you that Day, when you have wronged, that you are [all] sharing in the punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

In this world, shared pain softens; on that Day, sharing the punishment with your companion will not lighten it by a single grain.

A reflection

The comfort of company, withdrawn

Several commentaries on this ayah quote the same old Arabic poem. A famous poet of the desert lost her brother, and mourned him for years. She said that what kept her going was the crowd of others weeping for their own brothers. None of them had lost a brother like hers. But she consoled herself by their example.

That is a deep human truth. In this world, pain shared is pain softened. The patient in a ward full of people with the same illness feels less alone. A town hit by a flood grieves together, and the grief is somehow easier to carry.

The commentaries say this ayah removes exactly that comfort. Wa-lan yanfaʿakumu al-yawma … annakum fī al-ʿadhābi mushtarikūn: it will not benefit you today that you are sharing in the punishment. One says Allah has denied the people of the Fire the consolation that people in this world draw from each other's misfortune. Another explains why: each is so absorbed in his own suffering that he has no attention left for anyone else.

The Quran describes the same Day elsewhere. A man will flee from his own brother, his mother and his father. Each of them will have enough concern of his own to fill him (80:34-37).

A parent sits in a hospital waiting room after an accident. Other families are there, also waiting. In any other place they would talk. Here, nobody speaks. Each is listening only for their own name.

That is the faint shadow of this ayah in our world. It is described now, while company can still help, so that we might reach for the right company while there is time.

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.