Al-Jathiyah · Makki · ayah 10 of 37

Al-Jathiyah 45:10

مِّن وَرَآئِهِمْ جَهَنَّمُ ۖ وَلَا يُغْنِى عَنْهُم مَّا كَسَبُوا۟ شَيْـًٔا وَلَا مَا ٱتَّخَذُوا۟ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ أَوْلِيَآءَ ۖ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ

“Before them[1469] is Hell, and what they had earned will not avail them at all nor what they had taken besides Allāh as allies. And they will have a great punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

What they turned their backs on is where they are heading, and nothing they gathered or leaned on will stand in for them.

A reflection

Behind you, and ahead of you

Warāʾ usually means 'behind'. Yet several commentators say that here it means 'ahead of them', 'in front of them'. How can one word mean both?

The lexicons explain. The root first pictured fire hidden inside a fire-stick until it was struck. From that hiddenness came the sense of covering, and warāʾ became the name for whatever lies out of sight. One commentator defines it as the direction a person cannot see, whether behind or in front. He quotes an old poet who uses it to mean ahead. The poet pictures his own old age before him, creeping with the children like a vulture. The image is established.

Another commentator sees both meanings at once in this ayah. Hell is in front of them, because they are heading towards it. And it is behind them, because they have turned their backs on it, absorbed in the world and its pleasures.

Picture a man on a long train journey who has taken a seat facing backwards. He watches fields slide away, stations recede, the past unspooling in the window. He is so absorbed in the view that he forgets the obvious. The station he is travelling to is behind his head. Every minute he looks away from it, he is carried closer.

That is the strange geometry of this ayah. What we refuse to look at does not go away because we refuse to look. Turning your back on a destination does not stop the train. It just means you arrive surprised.

The fire-stick image adds a final layer. The fire was always inside, hidden until struck. One day what has been out of sight will be brought into view.

The mercy here is that the ayah is spoken while the train is still moving. You can turn around in your seat. You can look at where you are going, and change carriages if you need to. Most people only ever look out of the back window.

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.