'Abasa · Makki · ayah 36 of 42

'Abasa 80:36

وَصَـٰحِبَتِهِۦ وَبَنِيهِ

“And his wife and his children,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Even our closest companion and the children we built our lives around will be fled from; what we give them now is what counts.

A reflection

The companion who stayed close

The Quran does not say 'his wife' here. It says ṣāḥibatihi: his companion. The commentators explain it plainly as the wife he had in this world. But the word chosen has its own picture, and the lexicons describe it well. The root means one thing joined to another and staying near it. A hide left with its hair on was muṣḥab: the hair kept it company. A stubborn camel that finally gave in and followed its owner was said to aṣḥaba. A ṣāḥib is whoever stays close, in body or in care.

So a spouse, in this word, is the one who stayed. The one joined to you like hair to hide.

Picture a woman in her eighties whose husband died last spring after fifty-six years of marriage. Friends visit and ask about her plans. She keeps answering 'we': we might go to my daughter's in the summer; we don't like the new bus route. Then she stops, and corrects herself, and her eyes fill. The word 'we' has been her grammar for most of her life. She has not yet learned to speak in the singular.

That is what ṣāḥiba means at its deepest. And this ayah says that on the Day, even she will be fled from.

The commentators note that this comes at the top of the list. The heart's attachment to spouse and children is often the strongest of all. The Day's terror reaches even that.

The lesson is not to love less. It is to love now, while the 'we' still holds. One commentator imagines the wife's complaint on that Day. It is about what her husband gave her, and how he treated her, in this life. Kindness, patience, honesty, a good word at the end of a hard day: these are the things a companion remembers.

If you have a companion, a ṣāḥib or ṣāḥiba, tonight is a good night to tell them what their staying has meant.

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.