Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 27 of 165

Al-An'am 6:27

وَلَوْ تَرَىٰٓ إِذْ وُقِفُوا۟ عَلَى ٱلنَّارِ فَقَالُوا۟ يَـٰلَيْتَنَا نُرَدُّ وَلَا نُكَذِّبَ بِـَٔايَـٰتِ رَبِّنَا وَنَكُونَ مِنَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ

“If you could but see when they are made to stand before the Fire and will say, "Oh, would that we could be returned [to life on earth] and not deny the signs of our Lord and be among the believers."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Made to stand at the Fire, the deniers wish to be sent back; the reader, still here, already holds the return they beg for.

A reflection

You are the one who was sent back

Read the wish slowly: if only we could be sent back. Then look up from the page. Where are you, right now?

Every person reading this ayah is still here, in the life those standing at the Fire beg to return to. Their whole wish is for one more stretch of time with a choice still open. The reader has exactly that, today, without asking for it.

The verb is nuraddu, to be turned back. The lexicons say the root means turning a thing back the way it came. A coin handed back to the one who paid it was radd. One commentator explains why they wish for this above anything else. Whoever has fallen short, and then sees what it led to, longs to go back to the state before. Only there can the shortfall be put right.

A woman driving home on the motorway pulls out of the inside lane, for no reason she can later name. Seconds later a lorry jackknifes across the lane she has just left. She drives home with her hands shaking on the wheel. That evening she unpacks the shopping very slowly, holding each tin a little longer than she needs to. Everything ordinary looks borrowed.

That feeling, of being handed back a life you nearly lost, is what this ayah offers without the near miss. The Quran shows you the scene from the far side of the line, while you still stand on this side of it.

So the most useful way to read this ayah is not as a story about other people. It is a message delivered early, to the one person who can still act on it. Their 'if only' is your 'right now'.

Ask what someone standing there would give for your next hour. Then spend that hour as they would spend it, if they were given it back.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.