Al-Jathiyah · Makki · ayah 15 of 37

Al-Jathiyah 45:15

مَنْ عَمِلَ صَـٰلِحًا فَلِنَفْسِهِۦ ۖ وَمَنْ أَسَآءَ فَعَلَيْهَا ۖ ثُمَّ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكُمْ تُرْجَعُونَ

“Whoever does a good deed - it is for himself; and whoever does evil - it is against it [i.e., the self or soul]. Then to your Lord you will be returned.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every deed comes home to the one who did it, and every one of us comes home to the One who raised us.

A reflection

Read straight after 'forgive'

This ayah has a twin elsewhere in the Quran, but here it has a particular neighbour. It comes immediately after the command to forgive those who hurt you (45:14). One classical commentator reads the two together. 'Whoever does good, it is for himself' is a word to the ones who forgive. 'Whoever does evil, it is against it' is a word about those who did the hurting.

Read that way, the ayah answers the question every wronged person asks: if I let this go, who loses? The answer is: not you. Your forgiveness is credited to you. Their harm is debited to them. Nothing has been lost in the exchange, except the burden you were carrying.

Picture two neighbours locked in a dispute over a garden wall that one of them built a foot onto the other's land. Solicitors' letters have gone back and forth for a year. One evening the wronged neighbour, an older man, decides he will stop. He writes a short note saying he will not pursue it, and he means it. His son is furious: 'So he just gets away with it?' The father says something close to this ayah. What I do is mine. What he did is his. We will both be asked.

That is not resignation. It is clarity about where each deed lands. The commentator adds that Allah commanded the good and forbade the bad for the servant's own sake, not for any benefit that returns to Him.

The ayah also widens what counts as 'doing good'. In this setting it is not only prayer or charity. It is swallowing an insult, putting down a sword, choosing not to make a stranger's cruelty your own story. Those are deeds too, and they come home to the one who does them.

The next time you let something go, say the first half of this ayah to yourself, and believe it.

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.