Al-Hadid · Madani · ayah 12 of 29

Al-Hadid 57:12

يَوْمَ تَرَى ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَٱلْمُؤْمِنَـٰتِ يَسْعَىٰ نُورُهُم بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَبِأَيْمَـٰنِهِم بُشْرَىٰكُمُ ٱلْيَوْمَ جَنَّـٰتٌ تَجْرِى مِن تَحْتِهَا ٱلْأَنْهَـٰرُ خَـٰلِدِينَ فِيهَا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ هُوَ ٱلْفَوْزُ ٱلْعَظِيمُ

“On the Day you see the believing men and believing women, their light proceeding before them and on their right, [it will be said], "Your good tidings today are [of] gardens beneath which rivers flow, wherein you will abide eternally." That is what is the great attainment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

On a dark Day the believers' striving strides ahead of them as light, and the angels greet them with news that shows on every face.

A reflection

Your striving, walking ahead of you

Yasʿā nūruhum bayna aydīhim wa bi-aymānihim: their light striding ahead of them and on their right. The verb is yasʿā. To the first hearers, saʿy was walking fast, short of a full run, and it came to mean any earnest effort. Men who paid blood-money to end feuds were called suʿāt, strivers. A family's noble deeds were its masāʿī. The lexicons record these uses; the image is established.

So the light does not simply shine. It strides. One commentator pictures it exactly: as the believers hurry towards the Garden, their light hurries with them, at their side and ahead. And the word chosen for the light's movement is the word for human effort. What you strove for in this world walks ahead of you in the next.

Picture an airport at night. A plane has landed on a vast, dark apron it has never seen. A small car with flashing yellow lights pulls in front of it, with a sign on the back: follow me. The plane, for all its power, simply follows the light to its stand. Without it, the pilot would be guessing in the dark among hundreds of others.

On that Day there will be darkness too. The commentaries describe people unable to see their own hands. And for the believer, something will pull in ahead: a light made of every earnest effort he ever made. The prayer he rose for when he was tired. The feud he worked to end. The charity he went out of his way to deliver.

That is what makes saʿy today worth it. It is not lost when you are too tired to notice its effect. It is being turned, step by step, into the light that will walk ahead of you when you most need to see. Every earnest effort for Allah is a lamp sent on in front.

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.