Al-Muddaththir · Makki · ayah 55 of 56

Al-Muddaththir 74:55

فَمَن شَآءَ ذَكَرَهُۥ

“Then whoever wills will remember it.”

Saheeh International

Essence

So whoever actually reaches for it, let him remember: an open door, offered freely, that only opens for the one who actually walks towards it.

A reflection

Every thing is something reached for

Shayʾ, the ordinary word for any thing at all, began life as the verbal noun of shāʾa, to will. One classical reading takes it plainly: a thing is simply what is willed. Said of people, the same root carries a specific, active sense, reaching for something and actually arriving at it, not idle wishing from a distance.

This gives faman shāʾa, whoever wills, a sharper edge than a loose translation suggests. It is not describing whoever happens to feel like it on a given afternoon. It is describing whoever actually reaches, deliberately, and closes the distance to what they are reaching for. The remembering that follows is offered to that reaching, not to a passive wish left to drift.

A man who says he wills to learn the Quran by heart yet has not opened a single page in two years has not actually willed it in this root's sense at all. He has only wished it, comfortably, from a safe distance that costs him nothing and changes nothing.

This ayah's whole invitation rests on that distinction. The reminder is freely, genuinely offered to anyone. It opens specifically for the reaching, not for the wishing, and the gap between those two postures is exactly where most people who say they want this actually spend their whole lives standing.

There is a quiet mercy in how little this ayah actually asks for, given how much the surah has already shown is at stake. It does not demand a perfect will, fully formed and unwavering from the very first attempt. It simply asks that the reaching be real rather than merely spoken, however small or faltering that first reach genuinely turns out to be.

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.