Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 53 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:53

فَمَالِـُٔونَ مِنْهَا ٱلْبُطُونَ

“And filling with it your bellies”

Saheeh International

Essence

The root that fills a belly here is the root that named the grandees who filled people's eyes.

A reflection

The word that named the notables

A cooper knows the one mistake an apprentice always makes. He fills the cask to the very top. Then the bung will not go home. There is nowhere for the liquid to go when it is driven in, and the whole cask has to be drawn off again. A vessel that is full to the brim cannot be closed.

The root of the verb here is that filling, and the lexicons give it plainly. The root means fullness and completeness: the filling of a vessel.

Then they give the word's other life, and this is where the ayah turns over. The notables of a people are the malaʾ, one lexicon says, because they are filled with nobility. Another describes them as a group agreed on a view, who fill the eyes with their appearance and the souls with awe. A striking young man was called one who fills the eye.

Now remember who the malaʾ are in the Quran. They are the committee that always opposes the prophet. The malaʾ of Pharaoh's people (7:103). The malaʾ of Nuh's people, who said he was only a man like them (11:27). The ones who said, we have not seen you followed except by the lowest among us (26:111).

So the same three letters give the men who filled the eyes of a city and the bellies filled with this tree.

That is not a coincidence a reader should rush past. The surah has already said these people were mutrafīn, indulged (56:45). Here it uses the root of their social weight to describe what becomes of them. They filled rooms. They filled conversations. They filled the eye.

And a vessel filled to the brim cannot be closed. Nothing more can be put in it, and nothing can be sealed.

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.