Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 61 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:61

عَلَىٰٓ أَن نُّبَدِّلَ أَمْثَـٰلَكُمْ وَنُنشِئَكُمْ فِى مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

“In that We will change your likenesses and produce you in that [form] which you do not know.[1614]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The verb is the one for melting a signet ring down and recasting it: the same gold, the seal gone.

A reflection

The same gold, the seal gone

A grammarian's distinction is preserved in the lexicons and it settles this ayah's verb. To abdala a signet ring with a plain ring is to take one off and put the other on. To baddala the signet into a ring is to melt it down and recast it. The gold remains. Its seal is gone.

The verb in this ayah is the second one.

So the claim is not that you will be swapped for somebody else, as a man changes a ring. It is that the material will be put back in the crucible, and what comes out will carry a different stamp.

And the lexicons add that baddala can simply mean to alter a thing, with no replacement brought at all.

That is where pride loses its footing in this ayah, and the loss is precise. You are not the gold. The gold was given, measured out, and you did not refine an ounce of it. What you have spent a lifetime building and defending is the seal: the name, the reputation, the particular impression you leave on wax. Press it on a letter and people know whose it is.

This ayah says the seal can be taken off the metal.

The commentaries read this in two directions and record both. One says the sense is that We put others in your place, your likes among the creation. We are not unable to do it. Another reads the word as attributes rather than persons. We change the make and the character you are in, and bring you up in a state you do not know.

Someone may ask why Allah states this at all. He is free of all need (35:15). He tells us plainly that whoever strives, strives only for himself (29:6). A man who warns you that he could replace you is protecting a position. Allah is removing a vanity, which is the belief that the stamp was ours.

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.