Adh-Dhariyat · Makki · ayah 43 of 60

Adh-Dhariyat 51:43

وَفِى ثَمُودَ إِذْ قِيلَ لَهُمْ تَمَتَّعُوا۟ حَتَّىٰ حِينٍ

“And in Thamūd, when it was said to them, "Enjoy yourselves for a time."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Thamud were told to enjoy themselves for a while: a reprieve that sounded like permission, and was really a clock running down.

A reflection

When 'enjoy' is not a blessing

Read in isolation, tamattaʿū sounds generous. Enjoy yourselves. It is what a host says as you sit down to a meal. A first-time reader could easily take it as permission, even a kindness.

The commentaries read it in context, and the context is grim. Thamud had been given a sign, the she-camel, and told not to harm her. They hamstrung her. Then, as another surah records, their prophet said: 'Enjoy yourselves in your homes for three days. That is a promise not to be belied' (11:65). Many commentators take this ayah to mean exactly that: three days, and then the end. The 'enjoy' is the opening of a sentence whose last word is ruin.

The Quran uses the same imperative elsewhere in the same tone. 'Say: enjoy yourselves, for your destination is the Fire' (14:30). It is the language of a door being closed, not opened.

Picture a man at a fruit machine in a seaside arcade. He has won three times in a row. The lights flash, the coins rattle into the tray. To him this run of luck feels like proof that he has understood something. He keeps feeding the machine. Nothing about the flashing lights tells him what the night will cost.

This is the danger the ayah exposes. When a person keeps doing wrong and life keeps going smoothly, it is very easy to read the smoothness as approval. Nothing bad has happened. Perhaps nothing will. The comfort becomes an argument.

The ayah breaks that argument. Comfort after a warning is not a verdict in your favour. It may be the opposite: a final stretch of time, given so that no one can say they were not allowed to turn back.

So when ease continues while you know you are in the wrong, do not hear it as Allah's 'well done'. Hear it as a door held open. And walk through it, the right way, before it closes.

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.