Al-Ma'arij · Makki · ayah 12 of 44

Al-Ma'arij 70:12

وَصَـٰحِبَتِهِۦ وَأَخِيهِ

“And his wife and his brother”

Saheeh International

Essence

He would offer up his own lifelong companion and his own brother too, the two people who had walked closest beside him.

A reflection

A companion, not a possession

The word used for his wife here is not a term of ownership or a legal label; it comes from a root meaning to accompany, to stay close beside someone over time, the same word used for any companion on a long journey. A ṣāḥib is literally the one who walks beside you, present through the ordinary, unremarkable stretches of a shared road as much as through its dramatic moments.

That choice of word is doing something specific here, even inside a scene of total desperation. It names the marriage bond by what it actually is at its best, companionship sustained over years, rather than by any legal or possessive framing. The horror of the verse is sharpened precisely because of this: the man is not wishing away a mere legal arrangement he can annul. He is wishing away the person who has quite literally walked beside him longer than almost anyone else alive, his constant companion through an entire shared life.

For any reader in a marriage, this word is worth sitting with on its own terms, independent of this verse's grim context. A sāhib is not someone managed or possessed; it is someone accompanied, walked beside, through every ordinary Tuesday as much as through every crisis. A marriage measured by that standard looks, and is built, quite differently from one measured only by the roles each partner is expected to perform.

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.