Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 44 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:44

لَّا بَارِدٍ وَلَا كَرِيمٍ

“Neither cool nor beneficial.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Two words remove the only two reasons anyone ever seeks shade: it does not cool, and it does not honour.

A reflection

The two reasons anyone wants shade

A lacemaker works at the north window. Not because it is cooler there, though it is. The light from a north window does not move or glare. And that corner of the house is the one place kept clean enough for white thread. Over a working life it becomes her place. The chair is hers, and when a visitor sits in it somebody says something.

One commentary takes this ayah apart with unusual care, and its reading is worth following closely.

It begins by rejecting a tempting answer. If honour simply meant the shade's usefulness against heat, then cool and honourable would be two words for one thing, which is poor language. So it asks what else shade is for.

And it gives this. Shade has two benefits. One is physical: it blocks the heat. The other belongs to standing: a shaded place is a place where a person is received. In cold weather a man does not want shade at all; he goes out into the sun. Yet even then the shaded spot keeps its value. That is the ground people keep swept and sit on, while the open ground becomes where the rubbish goes.

So it concludes: not cool, meaning not sought for its coolness, and not honourable, meaning not a place prepared for anyone to sit in.

Then it names what the two denials add up to. There is no merit in it at all, neither to the senses nor to the mind.

That is a complete account of human comfort in two words. We need relief from heat, and we need somewhere that is ours. Every home tries to provide both. The lacemaker's chair is both.

And both are removed here, in the shortest ayah of the passage.

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.