Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 88 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:88

فَأَمَّآ إِن كَانَ مِنَ ٱلْمُقَرَّبِينَ

“And if he [i.e., the deceased] was of those brought near [to Allāh],”

Saheeh International

Essence

The three ranks come back, and the first of them has been renamed: the Foremost are now the Brought Near.

A reflection

The rank is renamed at the door

At the surah's opening the highest rank was given a name of its own, and it was a name about movement. The Foremost, the Foremost. Those are the brought near.

Here, at a deathbed, the same people are mentioned again, and only the second name is used.

One commentary asks why and answers in one step. The one who went ahead has two states, it says. One in the first life and one in the last. So He mentioned him the first time by what belongs to the first state. The second time He mentioned him by what belongs to the last.

So the renaming is a change of tense, not of subject. In the first life he is a man who gets there first. In the last he is a man who has been brought.

And the same commentary adds something that makes the renaming sharper. He has no state that is a middle between the standing for presentation and the reckoning. He is carried from this world to the highest of the high places.

That is the point of putting this rank first at a deathbed. The other two ranks have an interval. This one does not.

Which is worth noticing about the whole shape of the surah. It opened with three ranks at the great Rising. It closes with three ranks at a bedside. One reflective commentary states the symmetry outright. The rulings of the souls at death are mentioned here, and their rulings on the day of the greater return at the beginning. And He made them three sorts in both places.

So the surah has not changed its subject. It has changed its scale, from everybody at once to one man at a time.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.