An-Nazi'at · Makki · ayah 39 of 46

An-Nazi'at 79:39

فَإِنَّ ٱلْجَحِيمَ هِىَ ٱلْمَأْوَىٰ

“Then indeed, Hellfire will be [his] refuge.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The one who preferred the near life comes home at last, and the only shelter waiting is the Blaze.

A reflection

Camels coming home at nightfall

At dusk in open country, a herder's camels start drifting back towards the tents on their own. Nobody has to drive them. They have grazed far all day, and now, as the light goes, they come home to their people to be sheltered for the night. Every herder knew that sight.

The first hearers heard it in maʾwā. The root ʾ-w-y has two branches. One is drawing in: camels coming home to their people, birds pressing close together, a wound drawing closed as it heals. Maʾwā is the place anything returns to for shelter. The other branch is tenderness: awā lahu, his heart went out to him. That image is established in the lexicons.

So maʾwā is one of the warmest words in the language. It is home at nightfall, the place you are drawn back to, the place that takes you in. The Quran uses it of the young men of the cave who 'took refuge' in it (18:10).

Now read the ayah again. Fa-inna al-jaḥīma hiya al-maʾwā: then the Blaze, it is the refuge. The warm word is attached to the most terrible place. One classical scholar notes the grammar: 'the refuge', with no 'his', because everyone knows whose refuge it is. And the separating pronoun hiya, 'it', makes it exclusive: that, and nothing else, is the place he comes home to.

The irony is devastating, and deliberate. He spent his life seeking comfort in the near world, drawing in to its pleasures. He comes home at nightfall to find the only shelter waiting is fire. What he treated as refuge was never able to take him in.

This is not written to crush the reader, but to wake him. The same word, maʾwā, returns two ayat later, attached to the Garden. The camels can still choose which fold to walk towards before dark.

Ask where your heart goes home at the end of each day. Is it drawing in towards what will shelter it?

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.