An-Naba · Makki · ayah 21 of 40

An-Naba 78:21

إِنَّ جَهَنَّمَ كَانَتْ مِرْصَادًا

“Indeed, Hell has been lying in wait”

Saheeh International

Essence

Hell stands like a watch-post on a road everyone must travel, already prepared, watching for those who are coming.

A reflection

The barrier on the only road

Late at night on a long toll road, every vehicle slows at the same row of booths. There is no other way through the mountains. A camera reads each number plate. For most cars the barrier lifts at once. For one, it stays down, and a light begins to flash.

The lexicons say the root of mirṣād means getting ready to watch for something on its path. A snake waits by the road; a lion crouches to spring. The mirṣād is the watch-post on the road, and the Arabs sometimes simply called the road itself by that name. These are established senses.

The sources draw out several pictures from the word. It is a place of watching, named like the ground where horses are trained. The keepers of the Fire watch there for those who denied. It may be intensive: something that watches constantly and intently. It may mean prepared, set aside and made ready. And it may simply mean a road, a crossing point. One early scholar used to say, whenever he recited this ayah: at the gate there is a watch. Whoever comes with a pass goes through; whoever comes without one is held.

Several commentators draw a striking conclusion. There is no way to the Garden except across this road. They connect it with another ayah: there is none of you but will pass over it (19:71). One says the keepers of Paradise stand there to receive the believers and guard them as they cross.

So the image is not simply a monster in ambush. It is a checkpoint on a road that every traveller must take. For those who carry the pass, it is a place to be met and escorted. For those without it, it is where the journey stops.

The question the ayah leaves is not whether we will reach the barrier. We all will. It is what we are carrying when the camera reads our name.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.