Al-Mutaffifin · Makki · ayah 12 of 36

Al-Mutaffifin 83:12

وَمَا يُكَذِّبُ بِهِۦٓ إِلَّا كُلُّ مُعْتَدٍ أَثِيمٍ

“And none deny it except every sinful transgressor.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Quran reverses our usual order: we assume beliefs shape behaviour, but here a way of living quietly manufactures a denial.

A reflection

The life that writes the belief

We like to think that people examine the evidence and then choose how to live. This ayah suggests the traffic often runs the other way.

One classical reader describes two powers in a person. One is for knowing what is true. The other is for knowing what is good, in order to do it. Muʿtad, the transgressor, is the first power gone wrong. He oversteps the limits of honest thought, deciding in advance that Allah cannot know or cannot raise. Athīm, the sinner, is the second gone wrong. He is absorbed in appetite and anger, and a person absorbed in those, the scholar notes, rarely has room left for worship. That busyness can itself become what blocks belief in the Day.

Another commentator puts it more starkly. The denier is sunk in brief, imperfect pleasures. They have distracted him from lasting ones, and then pushed him to deny that the lasting ones exist.

Picture a man who sells fake designer watches online. Business is good. Friends who talk about honesty in trade strike him as naive. Talks about the Day of Judgement strike him as fairy tales. He believes he has thought his way to this view. In fact his view has been paid for. If the Day were real, his income would be a problem. It is much more comfortable if it is not.

This is not a claim that every doubter is secretly a sinner. It is a warning to watch the direction of travel in ourselves. When a truth would cost us something, the mind becomes remarkably skilled at finding it unconvincing. The honest question is not only 'is this true?' but also 'what would it cost me if it were?'

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.