Al-Qiyamah · Makki · ayah 27 of 40
Al-Qiyamah 75:27
وَقِيلَ مَنْ ۜ رَاقٍ
“And it is said, "Who will cure [him]?"”
Saheeh International
Essence
Round the dying, one question carries two meanings: who can heal him and keep him here, and who will carry his soul up?
A reflection
One question, asked from two directions
Most readers hear this ayah as a cry from the family. Is there anyone who can cure him? It is a natural reading, and the commentaries record it. The word rāq is one who recites words of cure over the sick. The people round the bed look for a healer, says one early voice, and no healer can do anything against Allah's decree.
But the commentaries record a second reading, and it changes the scene completely. Rāq can also come from a different verb: to climb, to ascend. Then the speakers are not the family at all. They are the angels at the deathbed, asking one another: who will ascend with his soul? Will it be the angels of mercy, or the angels of punishment?
The ayah does not tell us who is speaking. Qīla, 'it was said', is passive. The speaker is left unnamed, and so both readings stand.
Picture the room, then, with both voices in it. Below, a family by the bed, phoning relatives abroad for the name of anyone who might help. Above them, unseen, another conversation entirely, about where this person is going.
The family's question looks backwards: how can we keep him? The angels' question looks forwards: where is he being taken? The same three syllables, man rāq, hold both.
The worn reading hears only the first voice, and the ayah becomes a lament about the limits of medicine. With the second voice, it becomes a question about destination. The real drama of that room is not the one the family can see.
Which voice we notice says something about us. A life spent only asking how to stay will be surprised by a room where the important question is how to rise.
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