Al-Qiyamah · Makki · ayah 36 of 40

Al-Qiyamah 75:36

أَيَحْسَبُ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنُ أَن يُتْرَكَ سُدًى

“Does man think that he will be left neglected?[1809]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Does the human being really think he will be left like a stray camel, grazing where he likes, with no one to call him back?

A reflection

Not 'pointless': untended

Many English readers meet this ayah through the word 'purpose'. 'Does man think he will be left without purpose?' It sounds like a question about meaning: whether life adds up to anything. That is a real question, but it is not quite the picture in the Arabic.

The word is sudā. The lexicons give the root one sense: leaving a thing loose to go its own way. Camels were sudā when they grazed wherever they pleased, with no herdsman to call them back. 'I let my camels go sudā,' an Arab would say: I left them untended. A need left to waste was a need made sudā.

The verb beside it has its own picture. Yutraka, 'to be left', comes from a root whose classic image is the ostrich egg lying bare in the open desert. The bird has walked away and will not come back.

So the ayah asks: does the human being think he will be left like that? Loose in the pasture, no one calling, no one counting, no one coming back for him?

The commentators gave the question two edges. Some said it means left without command or prohibition, never told to do or avoid anything. Others said: left in the grave, never raised. One major commentary concluded that both are meant. You will not be left untended in this life, nor abandoned in the earth after it.

Notice what that does to the sceptic's position. The man of this surah did not want a meaningless life. He wanted an unwatched one. He wanted to keep pressing ahead with whatever he liked (75:5). The ayah names that wish exactly, and then asks whether he really believes it.

For a people who lived by their herds, the picture carried its own answer. An untended camel was not an image of freedom. It was a camel at risk: of straying, of thirst, of whoever came across it first. Sudā was not a word for liberty. It was a word for neglect.

The ayah is not threatening a herd. It is reminding it that it has a Herdsman.

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.