An-Najm · Makki · ayah 25 of 62

An-Najm 53:25

فَلِلَّهِ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةُ وَٱلْأُولَىٰ

“Rather, to Allāh belongs the Hereafter and the first [life].”

Saheeh International

Essence

The first life and the last both belong to Allah, so no wish, no idol and no ego can claim a single inch of either.

A reflection

Standing in the empty room, saying mine

A man of thirty-four signs the deeds to his first flat. He collects the keys, climbs the stairs, and stands in the empty living room. There is no furniture yet, only the smell of fresh paint. He says the word out loud, quietly, to nobody: 'Mine.'

It is a lovely moment, and a fragile one. This ayah sets it against a larger frame. Fa-lillāhi al-ākhiratu wa-l-ūlā: 'To Allah belong the last and the first.' The preposition li placed at the front marks ownership and makes it exclusive. To Allah, and to Him alone. The commentaries spell it out. He is the Owner of this world and the next. Nothing happens in either except what He wills. What He wills is, and what He does not will is not.

The flat is real. The man's effort to buy it is real. But the word 'mine' is borrowed. He holds it for a while, in a world that belongs to Someone else, on the way to a world that also belongs to Someone else.

This is where the ego quietly shrinks. Pride is built on 'mine': my house, my career, my reputation, my children's success, my opinion. The ayah does not insult any of these. It simply relocates them. They sit inside the first life, al-ūlā, and the first life is His.

A sceptic might ask why God needs to announce that everything is His. Does He need us to know? The Quran's own answer is that Allah is free of all need, al-Ghanī (35:15). Our acknowledging His ownership adds nothing to Him. It corrects us. It frees us from the exhausting work of defending a kingdom that was never ours.

The man in the empty room can keep his joy. He only needs to change one word. Not 'mine' but 'entrusted to me'. Then the flat becomes a gift, and the ego has nothing left to guard.

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.