Al-Haqqah · Makki · ayah 25 of 52

Al-Haqqah 69:25

وَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِىَ كِتَـٰبَهُۥ بِشِمَالِهِۦ فَيَقُولُ يَـٰلَيْتَنِى لَمْ أُوتَ كِتَـٰبِيَهْ

“But as for he who is given his record in his left hand, he will say, "Oh, I wish I had not been given my record”

Saheeh International

Essence

The same economical phrase that let one person call strangers over in joy now lets another wish they had never been handed anything at all.

A reflection

A side with its own old reputation

The root behind this ayah's shimāl, left, carries a cluster of senses the lexicons group together: the small bag tied tightly closed over a goat's udder so nothing escapes; shamāl, the north wind, named for blowing from the left when facing the Kaʿba; and, strikingly, shamūl, a word for wine, named because it closes over the mind and covers it. A separate strand of the same root names a person's settled character, something wrapped about them like a garment.

Run those senses together and a picture emerges distinct from anything said earlier about the right hand. Where the right hand's root, already explored elsewhere in this reward scene, carried strength, blessing and a sealed oath, this root carries closing, binding, covering over. A bag tied shut. A mind clouded by wine. Something wrapped tightly around a person until it becomes simply what they are, inescapably.

That is a fitting root for this particular record to arrive by. The classical commentaries elsewhere describe this person's hands bound at the moment of receiving it, the left hand pulled round to take what the right hand was never offered. This ayah's own word for that hand already carries the sense of being closed over, wrapped shut, bound in exactly the position the wider account describes.

A reader should resist treating "left hand" as simply a geographic detail, the opposite side from an earlier reward and nothing more. The root itself is already telling part of the story: something closing, binding, and settling permanently into place, long before the specific record it delivers is even opened.

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.