Al-Mutaffifin · Makki · ayah 31 of 36

Al-Mutaffifin 83:31

وَإِذَا ٱنقَلَبُوٓا۟ إِلَىٰٓ أَهْلِهِمُ ٱنقَلَبُوا۟ فَكِهِينَ

“And when they returned to their people, they would return jesting.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They carried the day's mockery home like dessert, and served it to their families as the best part of the evening.

A reflection

Two kinds of relish

The root of fakihīn is sweet. Fākiha is fruit: not the staple that keeps you alive, but what is passed round after the meal for delight. Fukāha is light, pleasant talk and jesting. A fakih man was good-humoured and made his friends laugh.

So when the mockers went home fakihīn, they went home relishing. One commentator says they treated their contempt for the believers as the best thing they had gained all day. It was the fruit of their evening, passed round the table.

The word is read in two ways. The reading of Ḥafṣ has fakihīn here, and in this place alone; elsewhere in the Quran it has fākihīn. Most other readers have fākihīn here too. Scholars say the two forms are close in meaning. One view gives the shorter form a nuance: pleased with themselves, full of their own cleverness.

Now listen for the same root elsewhere. 'The people of Paradise today are busy, fākihūn, rejoicing' (36:55). The same sweetness, the same relish, in a completely different place. One group enjoyed themselves at the believers' expense. The other enjoys what Allah has given.

Picture a woman who comes home from a parents' evening and spends dinner doing another mother's accent. Her family laugh until they cry. It is the funniest part of the evening. Nobody notices the cost, because the one paying it is not in the room.

The ayah asks which relish we are cultivating. The taste for other people's embarrassment grows with feeding, and so does the taste for gratitude. Only one of them is found in Paradise.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.