An-Naba · Makki · ayah 36 of 40

An-Naba 78:36

جَزَآءً مِّن رَّبِّكَ عَطَآءً حِسَابًا

“[As] reward from your Lord, [a generous] gift [made due by] account,[1828]”

Saheeh International

Essence

It is called a reward, and in the same breath a gift: from your own Lord, given until you say 'enough'.

A reflection

'I picked it'

In an orchard in September, a three-year-old sits on her father's shoulders. She stretches up with both hands, pulls an apple off a high branch and shouts that she picked it. Her father laughs and agrees. She did pick it. She could not have reached it in a hundred years without his shoulders.

This ayah calls the Garden two things at once. It is jazāʾ, a reward, and it is ʿaṭāʾ, a gift. One commentator explains the pairing. It is called a reward because Allah promised it, and He keeps His promise. It is called a gift because it is sheer favour and kindness, since nothing is owed to Him or required of Him. Another says the reward is given by His grace, His generosity, His kindness and His mercy.

The root of ʿaṭāʾ holds a lovely picture. The lexicons say it describes reaching up with the hand, like a gazelle rising on its hind legs to pull leaves from a branch. Giving grew from it: handing a thing across. These are established senses.

Here the ego is gently corrected. We like to think we earn our blessings, including the final one. The Prophet ﷺ said that no one's deeds will save him. His Companions asked, 'Not even you?' He said, 'Not even me, unless Allah covers me with His mercy' (Sahih al-Bukhari). Our deeds are the stretching of the child's arms. The shoulders are His.

Does Allah call it a gift to make us feel small? No. He needs nothing from us, and our gratitude adds nothing to Him. Calling it a gift frees us from the anxious pride of earning, and invites the joy of receiving.

The child is right to shout, and right to be delighted. She is just wrong about where the reaching came from.

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.