An-Najm · Makki · ayah 29 of 62

An-Najm 53:29

فَأَعْرِضْ عَن مَّن تَوَلَّىٰ عَن ذِكْرِنَا وَلَمْ يُرِدْ إِلَّا ٱلْحَيَوٰةَ ٱلدُّنْيَا

“So turn away from whoever turns his back on Our message and desires not except the worldly life.”

Saheeh International

Essence

There comes a point to stop presenting the case to someone who has turned his back on it, and to stop letting their choice break your heart.

A reflection

The life that is only near

A man at the optician's covers one eye and reads the chart. The top letter is clear. The second line blurs. Below that, nothing. The optician tells him he is short-sighted: he sees what is close perfectly well, and everything further away is lost.

The word dunyā carries that picture. The lexicons trace it to nearness. Dunyā is the feminine of adnā, 'nearer'. The world is named for being close: it arrived first, while the Hereafter was held back. The lowest sky is al-samāʾ al-dunyā, the nearest one. At Mina, the first pillar the pilgrims stone is al-jamra al-dunyā, the one nearest the camp. So the first hearers heard 'the near life': the one right in front of their faces.

Now hear the description in this ayah. Wa-lam yurid illā al-ḥayāta al-dunyā: 'and wanted nothing but the near life.' Not 'he enjoyed this world', which the Quran nowhere forbids. Rather, he wanted nothing but it. One commentary pictures him content with it, his gaze confined to it, straining every effort to improve it, and nothing beyond.

That is spiritual short-sightedness. The near life is real and good, and it is clear. But a person who can read only the top line of the chart has lost most of what there is to see. He plans careers, extensions, holidays, pensions, all in sharp focus. The life that comes after, larger and longer, is a blur he has stopped trying to read.

The ayah's diagnosis is gentle in its wording and serious in its weight. The danger is not wanting this world. It is wanting only it.

The cure is not to stop seeing the near. It is to have the eyes tested, and to get the lenses that let you read further down the chart.

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.