Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 29 of 165

Al-An'am 6:29

وَقَالُوٓا۟ إِنْ هِىَ إِلَّا حَيَاتُنَا ٱلدُّنْيَا وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمَبْعُوثِينَ

“And they say, "There is none but our worldly life, and we will not be resurrected."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Sent back, they would say it all again: there is nothing but our life of this world, and we will not be raised.

A reflection

The first thing they would say on the way back

This sentence returns almost word for word at 23:37, where its full treatment lives. There you will find the 'nearer life' hidden in dunyā, and the kneeling camel roused in mabʿūthīn. Here, its position is what is new.

Read straight after 6:28, the ayah can be heard two ways. It may simply report what the deniers used to say in this world. But one early interpreter heard it as part of the hypothetical. If they were sent back, they would return to what they were forbidden. And they would say, once again, that this life is all there is.

On that reading, this is the first sentence out of their mouths on the far side of a second chance. They have just stood at the Fire. They have just begged to return. And the creed they bring back with them is the old one, unchanged.

That is the root beneath the relapse of 6:28. Their deeds were not the deepest problem. The deepest problem was a sentence about what life is.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.