Al-Qiyamah · Makki · ayah 20 of 40

Al-Qiyamah 75:20

كَلَّا بَلْ تُحِبُّونَ ٱلْعَاجِلَةَ

“No! But you [i.e., mankind] love the immediate”

Saheeh International

Essence

The surah's diagnosis in one line: the heart kneels down at whatever is nearest, and lets the lasting thing slip behind it.

A reflection

The camel that will not get up

Most of us hear this ayah and think of other people: the rich, the greedy, the ones with three cars. 'Love of this world' sounds like a vice of the wealthy. If I am not wealthy, I must be safe.

The words point somewhere else. Al-ʿājila is not 'wealth', or even 'the world' in the abstract. It means the hasty one, the one that comes quickly. The lexicons note that this life itself was called al-ʿājila, the here-and-now, set against the life deferred. It is defined by its nearness, not its price.

And tuḥibbūna, you love, has a picture of its own. The Arabs said a camel aḥabba when it knelt down and would not get up, however hard it was urged. It had found its place and would not move. One lexicon derives love itself from this: clinging and staying. The same letters give ḥabba, a seed, and the heart's innermost core.

Put the two together. The ayah describes a heart that has knelt down at whatever is nearest, and will not rise.

A woman drives two hundred miles to sit with her father in hospital. For three days she holds his hand. And for three days, every time her phone buzzes on the bedside cabinet, her eyes go to it: work, a group chat, a delivery update. She is not greedy or rich. She is simply kneeling at the nearest thing.

That dislodges the worn-smooth reading. Love of al-ʿājila is not a matter of income. It is a matter of where the heart has knelt. The poor can kneel there as firmly as the rich. And anyone can stand up.

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.