An-Nazi'at · Makki · ayah 8 of 46

An-Nazi'at 79:8

قُلُوبٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ وَاجِفَةٌ

“Hearts,[1838] that Day, will tremble,”

Saheeh International

Essence

On that Day some hearts will race like spurred horses; the ayah says 'some', and leaves us asking which ours will be.

A reflection

A heart spurred like a horse

A father turns round in a supermarket aisle and his three-year-old is gone. It lasts forty seconds. He shouts her name, abandons the trolley, runs to the end of the row. Then she steps out from behind a display of cereal, grinning. The danger is over. His heart does not believe it. For the next ten minutes it hammers on as if it were still running without him.

That is close to what the first hearers heard in wājifa. The root w-j-f began with animals. Wajīf was a brisk, driving pace of camels and horses, just short of a gallop. A rider awjafa his mount when he spurred it on. An old saying warns that the rider who spurs hard wears his mount thin. And the same word was used of the heart: it wajafa when it throbbed and raced. That image is established in the lexicons.

So the ayah does not simply say that hearts will be afraid. It pictures them as spurred mounts, flanks heaving, running at a pace no rider chose. One early authority said such hearts are 'displaced from their places'. The sources compare another ayah: 'when hearts are at the throats' (40:18).

There is something particularly frightening in that picture. A frightened person can usually steady himself: slow his breathing, talk himself down. A heart in wajīf is past that. The rider has lost the reins. The body is running from something the mind cannot yet face.

The sources say the ayah describes the deniers' hearts on the Day, and the next ayat confirm it by quoting their words. Their hearts had spent a lifetime being spurred by other things: gain, fear of people, the next pleasure. On that Day, the spur changes hands.

The question for us is quieter. What spurs my heart now? A notification, a rumour, a bill, a glance from someone whose approval I crave? A heart trained to race at every small spur has no reins left for the great one. A heart that has learned to be still before Allah has somewhere to stand.

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.