Al-Hashr · Madani · ayah 20 of 24

Al-Hashr 59:20

لَا يَسْتَوِىٓ أَصْحَـٰبُ ٱلنَّارِ وَأَصْحَـٰبُ ٱلْجَنَّةِ ۚ أَصْحَـٰبُ ٱلْجَنَّةِ هُمُ ٱلْفَآئِزُونَ

“Not equal are the companions of the Fire and the companions of Paradise. The companions of Paradise - they are the attainers [of success].”

Saheeh International

Essence

The ayah states the obvious on purpose, because people live as if it were not true, and it defines winning as crossing a desert alive.

A reflection

Winning is crossing the desert alive

Al-fāʾizūn is usually translated 'the successful' or 'the winners', and modern ears hear a competition. Winners imply losers who were beaten. Success suggests a podium, a ranking, a prize collected ahead of others.

The word the first hearers knew had a different landscape behind it. The Arabs called a long stretch of desert with no water for two nights or more a mafāza. Many said it was named in hope: whoever crossed it had fāza, come through safe. Others said it was named for the dying it caused. In a game of lots, the arrow that came out first had also fāza. So the word joins two things: escape from what you fear, and arrival at what you love.

One commentary glosses the ayah in exactly those two halves. The companions of the Garden are those who reach what they sought and wanted, and who are saved from what they feared.

Picture a rider coming out of a waterless stretch at dusk, his animal stumbling, his own lips cracked. Ahead, at last, there is a well with green around it. He has not beaten anyone. Nobody else needed to lose for him to arrive. He has simply come through alive, and reached what he longed for.

That is the 'success' the ayah means. It is not victory over others. It is survival of a crossing that kills many, and arrival at water. The question it puts to a reader is not whether you are ahead of the people around you. It is whether you will come out of the desert at all.

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.