Ad-Dukhan · Makki · ayah 53 of 59

Ad-Dukhan 44:53

يَلْبَسُونَ مِن سُندُسٍ وَإِسْتَبْرَقٍ مُّتَقَـٰبِلِينَ

“Wearing [garments of] fine silk and brocade, facing each other.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The mindful wear fine and heavy silk, and they sit facing one another, none ever seeing the back of another's head.

A reflection

No one sees the back of anyone's head

Yalbasūna min sundusin wa-istabraqin mutaqābilīn: they wear fine silk and brocade, facing one another.

The commentaries dwell on that last word. Mutaqābilīn: facing each other. None of them looks at the back of another's head, says the narration-based commentary. Another adds a lovely detail. Their sitting place turns with them wherever they turn, so that they always face one another.

One theological commentary gives the purpose. It is so that they find companionship in one another.

The root q-b-l is facing. The lexicons say every word in it goes back to one thing turned towards another. The qibla is called so because people face it in prayer, and it faces them. Tribes are qabāʾil, people who turn towards one another.

A family goes out for a birthday meal. Around the table, every face is lit from below by a phone. The grandmother waits for a while. Then she asks, quietly, if everyone would turn their phones face down for an hour. They do, a little sheepishly. Within ten minutes they are laughing at a story none of them had heard before.

So much of modern life is spent side by side but not face to face. Beside each other on sofas, in cars, at desks. Facing screens. The Garden is described as the opposite: every face turned towards every other.

Another surah adds the reason it can be so. We will remove whatever rancour is in their hearts. Brothers, on thrones, facing one another (15:47).

That is something we can practise now. Turn your chair. Put the screen down. Look at the face of the person who is with you. It is a small rehearsal of the company of the Garden.

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.