Al-Qiyamah · Makki · ayah 33 of 40

Al-Qiyamah 75:33

ثُمَّ ذَهَبَ إِلَىٰٓ أَهْلِهِۦ يَتَمَطَّىٰٓ

“And then he went to his people, swaggering [in pride].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Having turned his back on his Lord, he strolled home to his family, stretching his back in a swagger, as if he had won.

A reflection

Two backs

Yatamaṭṭā is a word with a body in it. The lexicons say the root means stretching and drawing out. The back is called maṭā, named for its length. The riding camel is a maṭiyya, the animal whose back you mount. To tamaṭṭā is to stretch yourself out: to swagger, twisting the back and flinging out the arms. Some commentators took the word from the stride, which the proud man lengthens. Others took it from the back, which he twists as he walks. Either way, the picture is of a spine put on display.

Now set it beside the ayah two lines earlier: 'he did not pray', lā ṣallā (75:31). The word for prayer has its own bodily neighbour. The ṣalā in Arabic is the lower back, the part that bends in every bow. One classical derivation ties the two together, though the better-known view roots ṣalāh in supplication. Even as an echo, the picture is striking.

Three ayat hold two backs. One was meant to bend five times a day and never did. The other was stretched out, twisted and paraded down the street. The man who would not lower his back to his Lord could not stop showing it to people. And the surah has already named where such a back ends up. The gloomy faces of 75:25 expect a fāqira, a blow that breaks the spine.

That is how pride works in most of us, in smaller ways. Whatever does not bow to Allah tends to straighten itself in front of others. The heart that will not say 'I need You' finds other places to say 'look at me'. The energy is the same. Only the direction changes.

There is good news folded into this. The same back can be turned round. Every rakʿa is an act of bending the very part of you that pride likes to stretch. The forehead goes to the floor, where the swagger cannot follow.

Next time you bow in prayer, notice your own back. Feel it bend. That small, ordinary movement is the precise opposite of the walk in this ayah. And the man in the ayah, for all his strut, never once knew what it felt like.

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.