Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 57 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:57

فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ

“So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny? -”

Saheeh International

Essence

Asked straight after faithful companions, the question lands hardest not on the young but on the widowed, the unmarried and the betrayed.

A reflection

The reading glasses on the bedside table

Most people assume this refrain, coming straight after companions in the Garden, is aimed at the young. A promise to keep a young man's eyes in check.

Now picture who else is listening.

A widow of seventy has lived alone for three years. Her husband's reading glasses are still folded on his bedside table, where he put them down the night before the hospital. She dusts round them. She has never been able to move them into a drawer.

For her, the ayah before this refrain is not about strangers. And the Quran gives her reason to hear it that way.

It describes the people of the Garden 'they and their spouses, in shade, reclining on couches' (36:56). It records the welcome at the gate: 'Enter the Garden, you and your spouses, made glad' (43:70). And it names the Gardens of Eden that the believers enter 'with whoever was righteous among their fathers, their spouses and their descendants' (13:23).

So the list of favours this refrain points to is not only about new faces. It includes the old one. The man who left his glasses on the table.

That changes the question. Which of your Lord's favours will you deny? For the young, the temptation is to deny the Garden for something nearer. For the widow, the temptation is quieter. It is to believe that what she had is finished, that the folded glasses are the end of the story.

The refrain asks her not to deny that. The ayat say the reunion is part of the promise, for the righteous of both.

She may still leave the glasses where they are. But she can say, when she dusts round them, what the believer says to this question: not one of Your favours, Lord, do I deny.

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.