Al-Ma'arij · Makki · ayah 11 of 44

Al-Ma'arij 70:11

يُبَصَّرُونَهُمْ ۚ يَوَدُّ ٱلْمُجْرِمُ لَوْ يَفْتَدِى مِنْ عَذَابِ يَوْمِئِذٍۭ بِبَنِيهِ

“They will be shown each other. The criminal will wish that he could be ransomed from the punishment of that Day by his children”

Saheeh International

Essence

Shown each other with total clarity, the guilty one would trade away even his own sons to escape what is coming.

A reflection

Seeing with nowhere left to hide

The verb here comes from the same root as the everyday word for sight, but in this intensified form it means something closer to being made to see, shown something with total clarity whether a person wants to look or not. This is not a glance that could be avoided by turning away. Every relation, every companion, every connection a person ever had is placed in plain view, visible in a way ordinary eyesight never quite manages in this life.

That total visibility is itself part of the torment the surah is describing. In this life people manage their image carefully, choosing what gets seen and what stays hidden, softening the worst of themselves behind explanations and good lighting. This verse describes a moment where that management stops working entirely, where everyone and everything a person built their life around becomes visible at once, to themselves and to everyone near them, with no edit available.

There is something for a reader to sit with even now, long before that Day: how much of an ordinary life is spent curating what gets seen rather than simply living honestly enough that nothing would need hiding if the curtain were suddenly pulled back. The clarity this verse describes is coming regardless of preparation. The only real choice is whether a person spends their time now becoming someone who would not dread it.

The full entry has 7 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.