An-Nazi'at · Makki · ayah 35 of 46

An-Nazi'at 79:35

يَوْمَ يَتَذَكَّرُ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنُ مَا سَعَىٰ

“The Day when man will remember that for which he strove,”

Saheeh International

Essence

On that Day every forgotten effort comes back to mind at once, and the only remembering that helps is the kind we do now.

A reflection

The thread round the finger

An old man in a village shop ties a length of red wool round his finger before he leaves home. His wife has asked him to buy matches. He will glance at the wool a dozen times on the walk. It is an old habit, older than phones and sticky notes: a small thing tied to you so that something important does not slip away.

The first hearers knew exactly that picture. The lexicons say that dhikr is the opposite of forgetting, and that a man would tie a thread round his finger to remember a need. That was istadhkara. The thing you remember by is a tadhkira. Dhikr lives in two places, the heart and the tongue: inward presence and outward speech. That image is established.

The verb in this ayah is yatadhakkaru, form V, which the lexicons describe as remembering with effort: calling something to mind and taking its lesson. On that Day, a human being will remember what he strove for. One classical scholar explains how. He will see his deeds written in his record and remember them, though he had forgotten them. The Quran says elsewhere: 'Allah has counted it, while they forgot it' (58:6).

So the Day is, among other things, a Day of total remembering. Every effort we made, good and bad, returns to mind together. The ones we were proud of, and the ones we buried.

That makes the thread round the finger urgent now. Much of what we do slips away from us within days. The unkind word, the missed prayer, the quiet act of help. Allah does not forget any of it. We do.

The Quran's remedy is dhikr in this life: remembering Allah, and remembering ourselves before Him, while remembering can still change things. A believer ties a thread round his heart.

Today, choose one small reminder, a note on your phone or a thread on your wrist. Let it bring Allah to mind at a set time each day this week.

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.