Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 48 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:48

أَوَءَابَآؤُنَا ٱلْأَوَّلُونَ

“And our forefathers [as well]?"”

Saheeh International

Essence

They put the ancestors last because they were the hardest case, and the reply puts them first.

A reflection

They named the hardest case, and it was answered first

A man in front of a clerk about his debts will sometimes play a card he thinks is unanswerable. He names the oldest one. Nineteen years, three owners of the business ago, the paperwork long gone. He names it to show that the whole book is beyond rescue. And occasionally the clerk looks up and says: right, let us start with that one.

That is what happens between this ayah and the two after it.

The commentaries are clear on why the fathers are added here. One says the deniers added it because this case is more remote. If we are dust after death, our forefathers are further gone than crumbled bones. They put the hardest item last, as the clincher.

Then read the reply, and notice the order. Say: indeed the former and the later are to be gathered to the appointed time of a known day (56:49-50).

One commentary spells out what has just happened. They delayed mention of the fathers because the far-fetchedness in their case was greater. So the reply puts the former first, before the later. The very ones whose raising you find most absurd are the ones taken first. Its conclusion is a single phrase: an indication that the matter is easy.

That is the whole shape of the exchange. Not a counter-argument, and not an explanation. A reordering.

And it is worth borrowing, because we all keep one item at the back of the book. The thing we would never bring to Allah because it is too old, too compounded, too embarrassing to have carried this long. We hold it up, privately, as proof that the account cannot be settled.

The answer in this surah is to start with that one.

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.