Al-Ahqaf · Makki · ayah 16 of 35

Al-Ahqaf 46:16

أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ نَتَقَبَّلُ عَنْهُمْ أَحْسَنَ مَا عَمِلُوا۟ وَنَتَجَاوَزُ عَن سَيِّـَٔاتِهِمْ فِىٓ أَصْحَـٰبِ ٱلْجَنَّةِ ۖ وَعْدَ ٱلصِّدْقِ ٱلَّذِى كَانُوا۟ يُوعَدُونَ

“Those are the ones from whom We will accept the best of what they did and overlook their misdeeds, [their being] among the companions of Paradise. [That is] the promise of truth which they had been promised.”

Saheeh International

Essence

For those who pray like the man at forty, Allah receives the best of their deeds, passes over their misdeeds, and counts them in the Garden.

A reflection

Received, the way a newborn is received

Nataqabbalu, We accept, comes from a root that one lexicon traces to a single picture: one thing facing another. The qibla is what people face in prayer. A midwife is a qābila, because she faces the child as it comes and receives it. Tribes are qabāʾil, people who turn towards one another. The image is established.

Read straight after the previous ayah, that picture is moving. That ayah spoke of a mother who carried a child with hardship and delivered him with hardship (46:15). This one says Allah receives the best of what His servants did. The deeds are not merely noted. They are faced, and taken in hand.

Picture a delivery room at the end of a long night. The mother is exhausted. The father is pale. The midwife, calm, reaches forward with both hands and receives the child as it arrives. She has done it thousands of times, yet she still faces each one fully. Her hands are the first thing the child meets in the world.

Our good deeds often feel small, half-formed, born with difficulty. A prayer finished distracted. A charity given with a moment's reluctance. A kindness offered late. The ayah says that for those who turn to Him, Allah receives such deeds. He faces them as a midwife faces a child, and takes the best of them up.

One commentary on the related readings notes that the verb is also read in the passive: the best of what they did is received. Either way, the picture is of something arriving and being welcomed.

The next time you finish a good deed and think it is not much, picture those hands. You did not hand it over to empty air. It was received.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.