Al-Qiyamah · Makki · ayah 28 of 40

Al-Qiyamah 75:28

وَظَنَّ أَنَّهُ ٱلْفِرَاقُ

“And he [i.e., the dying one] is certain that it is the [time of] separation”

Saheeh International

Essence

At the end he is sure it is the parting: a clean line drawn between him and all he loved, nightfall or dawn.

A reflection

A parting, not a switching off

Many people, believers included, carry a quiet picture of death as a switch. The lights go off, and that is that. Even religious talk can slip into it: 'he's gone', 'it's over', 'the end'.

The ayah does not use a word for ending. It uses al-firāq, the parting. The commentaries say what is parted. He is sure it is the parting from this world, from family, wealth and children. Several add: this happens when he sees the angels. Another commentator adds a second sense: the soul parting from the body.

One classical theologian draws a conclusion from the word itself. A parting, he notes, needs two things that both remain. You cannot part from something that has ceased to exist. So by calling death firāq, the ayah treats the soul as something that continues after the body is laid down.

That is a quiet but enormous claim, made in a single noun. The person is not extinguished. He is separated.

One of the poets the commentaries quote catches the feeling from the other side. A parting unlike any parting, he says, for the hope of meeting again is cut. That is what death feels like to the one who believes it is only an ending.

A young woman clears her late father's flat. Everything is exactly where he left it: his reading glasses folded on the newspaper, his slippers by the bed. She keeps saying to herself that he is gone. Then, in the quiet, a different sentence comes. Not gone. Gone ahead.

The ayah supports the second sentence. It describes a separation, with all its grief. But separation is a word with a future in it. Those who part can, by Allah's mercy, meet again.

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.