At-Tahrim · Madani · ayah 7 of 12

At-Tahrim 66:7

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَا تَعْتَذِرُوا۟ ٱلْيَوْمَ ۖ إِنَّمَا تُجْزَوْنَ مَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ

“O you who have disbelieved, make no excuses that Day. You will only be recompensed for what you used to do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The one day an excuse has always worked, on some level, with someone — turns out to be the one day it works with no one at all.

A reflection

Three kinds of excuse, and the one that still works

The lexicons sort an excuse into three kinds. You say you did not do it. You say why you did it, hoping the reason softens the deed. Or you say plainly, I did it, and I will not do it again — which one classical source names as the only kind that is also repentance. Every repentance, it notes, is a form of excuse. Not every excuse is repentance.

This ayah's verb, taʿtadhirū, belongs to a pattern the Quran uses almost nowhere else except to refuse it outright: make no excuse, we will never believe you (9:94). By the time this scene arrives, only the first two kinds are left to offer, because the third kind has a condition built into it that can no longer be met. Repentance only works while there is still a future in which not to repeat the deed. On that Day, there is no more future left inside which to prove it.

A man dismissed after years of cutting corners at work is finally asked, in his last conversation with the company, why he did it. For once he does not explain himself. He says only, I did it, and I regret it. It saves nothing — the decision was already made before he spoke. But it is the one kind of answer, among the three available to him, that still means something, even now, even too late to change the outcome.

That is the ayah's real warning. Not that explanation is forbidden. That the only explanation which ever does any good has an expiry attached to it, and this Day has already passed that date.

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.