'Abasa · Makki · ayah 37 of 42

'Abasa 80:37

لِكُلِّ ٱمْرِئٍ مِّنْهُمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ شَأْنٌ يُغْنِيهِ

“For every man, that Day, will be a matter adequate for him.[1863]”

Saheeh International

Essence

On that Day each person will have a concern enough to fill them; the one who felt he needed no one will finally have enough.

A reflection

The question his wife asked

This ayah has a moving story attached to it in the hadith collections. It shows how the Companions heard the Quran: as real, and personal.

The Prophet ﷺ told his wife that on the Day of Resurrection people will be gathered barefoot, naked and uncircumcised. She asked the question anyone would ask: men and women together, looking at one another? He answered that the matter would be too grave for them to look at one another (Sahih Muslim).

In another version, recorded by al-Tirmidhī, who graded it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ, a woman asked the same question. The Prophet ﷺ answered by reciting this very ayah. Every one of them, that Day, will have a concern enough for him.

Notice what the answer does. It does not deny the embarrassment the question imagines. It shows the question is too small for that Day. Modesty, shame and self-consciousness, which fill so much of our inner life here, will simply have no room. Each person will be entirely taken up with one thing: their own fate before Allah.

Picture a mother sitting in a hospital corridor while her son is in emergency surgery. Her hair is uncombed. She is wearing the cardigan she grabbed from the hall, inside out. A colleague from work walks past and she does not even notice. On any other day she would have been mortified to be seen like this. Today it does not register. Every ounce of her is behind those theatre doors.

That is a small human glimpse of shaʾnun yughnīhi. The concern that fills a person so completely that nothing else can get in.

The story also shows something about the one who asked. She asked. She did not pretend to understand, or stay silent to seem pious. She brought her real, human worry to the Prophet ﷺ, and he answered it seriously. That, too, is how the Quran is meant to be received.

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.