Al-Jathiyah · Makki · ayah 21 of 37

Al-Jathiyah 45:21

أَمْ حَسِبَ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱجْتَرَحُوا۟ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِ أَن نَّجْعَلَهُمْ كَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ سَوَآءً مَّحْيَاهُمْ وَمَمَاتُهُمْ ۚ سَآءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ

“Or do those who commit evils think We will make them like those who have believed and done righteous deeds - [make them] equal in their life and their death?[1472] Evil is that which they judge [i.e., assume].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Worshippers once stood all night on this one ayah, weeping, asking which of the two groups they would be found in.

A reflection

The weeping-place of the worshippers

Three commentaries preserve accounts of what this ayah did to people who took it seriously. A man of Makkah, by one report, pointed out a spot to a visitor and said: this is where Tamīm al-Dārī stood. He had seen him one night, until dawn or nearly, reciting this single ayah, bowing and prostrating with it, and weeping. Another account tells of a student who spent a night in the house of al-Rabīʿ ibn Khuthaym. His host rose to pray, reached this ayah, and stayed on it until morning, weeping hard. A third recalls al-Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ repeating it from the start of the night to the end. Then he would say: if only I knew which of the two groups you are in.

One commentary records that this ayah came to be called 'the weeping-place of the worshippers'.

These are reports preserved in the commentaries, and they are offered here as reports. But notice what moved these people. Not the description of the wrongdoers. They were not worried about other people. They were asking about themselves.

Picture a man in his forties who wakes in the last part of the night, unable to sleep, and decides to pray. He opens to this page by chance. He reads the ayah once, and then again. Somewhere on the third reading the question changes. It is no longer what they think. It is what he thinks. He has been assuming, quietly, that whatever he does, it will all come out fine in the end. The ayah has just asked him on what basis.

That is the genius of the question form. 'Do those who commit evil deeds think...?' invites every reader to check whether they are thinking it.

You do not need to stand all night. But you might read this ayah slowly once tonight, and let al-Fuḍayl's question settle on you. Which of the two groups am I in, by the way I actually live?

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.