Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 16 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:16

مُّتَّكِـِٔينَ عَلَيْهَا مُتَقَـٰبِلِينَ

“Reclining on them, facing each other.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Settled on them, and turned towards one another: the first rank's posture is firmness, and the first thing in front of them is a face.

A reflection

"Reclining" is a word about being tied shut

In English, reclining suggests slouching. A man sinking into cushions, half asleep, with nothing holding him up. That is not what the Arabic is doing.

One lexicon makes this root a small one, and gives it two ideas: tying a thing, and firmness.

A wikāʾ is the cord that ties a waterskin or a purse shut. A tight-fisted man is described with this verb, as though he had been tied up and let nothing out. A skin is awkā when it has been filled right up and then fastened. To tawakkaʾa is to bear down on a staff and brace yourself by it. A tukaʾa is the walking staff itself, or anything you lean on.

And one lexicon says it outright. The reclining man is really a man fastened to his seat: settled, and not about to rise.

So muttakiʾīna is not a collapse. It is the posture of someone who has arrived.

There is a difference between the two that anyone can recognise. A man sitting in a waiting room is not at rest, however comfortable the chair. He is in transit, and his body knows it. A man sitting in his own house with nothing to go to afterwards sits differently, and you can see it from across the room.

One commentary notices why the ayah bothers to say "reclining on them" at all, having just said "on couches". It is emphasis, to stop a particular misreading. Otherwise you might think they are on couches but leaning on something else. That happens to a man on a chair too small to lean back in, with something pushed underneath to make up the difference.

So the ayah closes that gap. The sitting and the leaning are both on the same thing. Nothing has been improvised, and nothing needs propping.

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.