An-Naba · Makki · ayah 30 of 40

An-Naba 78:30

فَذُوقُوا۟ فَلَن نَّزِيدَكُمْ إِلَّا عَذَابًا

“"So taste [the penalty], and never will We increase you except in torment."[1825]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The voice turns from speaking about them to speaking to them: taste it, for now there is only more of what they chose.

A reflection

When the chair looks up

At a disciplinary hearing, the panel chair has spent an hour going through the evidence. Throughout, she has referred to 'the employee'. He has sat half-listening, arms folded. Then she closes the file, looks up and says his first name. The room changes. It is no longer a report about someone. It is a word spoken to him.

The classical sources notice that exactly this happens at this ayah. Until now the surah has spoken about the deniers: they did not expect a reckoning; they denied Our signs. Now, suddenly, it speaks to them: fa-dhūqū, so taste. One commentator says the shift from 'they' to 'you' shows the fullness of anger. Another says it is as if they had been brought into the room to be addressed face to face, which makes the rebuke far heavier.

The same commentator sees a courtroom shape in the whole passage. First the punishment is described. Then it is declared a fitting recompense. Then the crimes are listed one by one. Then the ruling is repeated, now justified: so taste. The small word fa, 'so', ties the command to everything that went before. It is like a judge who gives a verdict, sets out the evidence, and then restates the verdict.

The verb itself carries a bitter irony. Dhāqa, to taste, normally means taking a little. The lexicons say that for a full portion the Arabs said 'eat'. Here the command to 'taste' introduces a punishment that only increases.

There is a sobering thought in this for us. For most of our lives, the Quran speaks of the deniers in the third person, and we read about them from a safe distance. But the Quran can turn and address the reader too. The question is whether we will let it speak to us now, while its voice is still a warning and not yet a verdict.

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.