An-Nazi'at · Makki · ayah 12 of 46

An-Nazi'at 79:12

قَالُوا۟ تِلْكَ إِذًا كَرَّةٌ خَاسِرَةٌ

“They say, "That, then, would be a losing return."[1841]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The deniers joked that coming back would be a losing deal for them, and without meaning to, they told the exact truth.

A reflection

The joke that was a confession

A man leaves the office on a grey afternoon. A colleague mentions the forecast: heavy rain from five. He laughs. 'Well, if they're right, I'll be soaked.' He walks out without a coat. At ten past five, he is soaked. His joke was a perfect description of what happened. He just did not believe it while he was telling it.

The deniers in this ayah do the same thing. 'That, then, would be a losing return.' The sources explain the meaning. If this coming back were real, then we would be the losers, because we denied it. They said it as mockery. One scholar notes the cleverness of the sneer. They dressed up something they were certain would never happen as if it were likely, to make the joke sharper.

But listen to what they actually conceded. They admitted that if the return is true, the people who denied it lose. They were not confused about the stakes. They understood exactly what was at risk. They simply bet that it would not happen.

A sceptic today might put a similar point more seriously. Isn't believing just to avoid losing a rather shallow motive? Faith as insurance?

The Quran does not ask anyone to believe as a wager. It argues from creation, from conscience, from the first making of every person. What this ayah does is different. It holds up the deniers' own words and lets them stand. They themselves admitted what was at stake. The Quran simply takes them at their word.

One early authority read khāsira in another way: false, a return that will never come. On that reading they were saying outright that it will never happen. Either way, the surah's answer follows immediately: 'It will be but a single shout' (79:13).

What remains open, for anyone reading, is which side of their sentence they are standing on. The deniers knew what a losing return would mean. The question is not whether the stakes are real. It is whether we are still walking out of the door without a coat.

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.