'Abasa · Makki · ayah 23 of 42

'Abasa 80:23

كَلَّا لَمَّا يَقْضِ مَآ أَمَرَهُۥ

“No! He [i.e., man] has not yet accomplished what He commanded him.”

Saheeh International

Essence

No one can close the account with Allah as 'done'; what He asked is not yet finished, and that 'not yet' is also hope.

A reflection

Never quite 'sorted'

One commentator explains the rebuke in this ayah through the mind of the person it answers. He is the one who says he has already paid Allah's due, in himself and in his wealth. The ayah replies: no. He has not yet carried out what his Lord required of him.

It is worth asking why Allah's commands are never 'done'. It is not because He needs more from us. 'I did not create jinn and humans except to worship Me. I want no provision from them, nor do I want them to feed Me' (51:56–57). Whoever strives, strives for himself (29:6). The commands are for us.

They are for us the way breathing is for us. No one says they breathed a great deal last year and so are sorted now. Prayer, remembrance, honesty and kindness are not a fee paid once to be let in. They are the ongoing life of a heart that is turned towards its Lord. Stop them, and something in us begins to die.

Picture a man who went on Hajj at forty. It was the most moving experience of his life. He came home and, half-joking, told his friends: 'That's me sorted, then.' Over the next few years his prayers grew irregular. He was not rebelling. He simply felt he had done the big thing. Then one Ramadan, listening to this surah in the night prayer, he heard lammā yaqḍi mā amarahu and understood it for the first time. The Hajj was not the end of the road. It was a gift for the road.

Many people today are searching for exactly what that man lost: a sense of being connected to something beyond themselves, day after day. They look for it in routines, retreats and apps. The Quran offers it as an ongoing relationship with the One who made them. It is never finished, because a relationship never is.

So the ayah's 'not yet' is not a scolding. It is an invitation to keep going. Each command is not a box to tick, but a door kept open between you and Allah.

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.