Al-Mutaffifin · Makki · ayah 36 of 36

Al-Mutaffifin 83:36

هَلْ ثُوِّبَ ٱلْكُفَّارُ مَا كَانُوا۟ يَفْعَلُونَ

“Have the disbelievers [not] been rewarded [this Day] for what they used to do?”

Saheeh International

Essence

A surah that opened with measures given short closes with a single question: has every deed now been paid back in full?

A reflection

The well fills again

Thuwwiba, repaid, comes from a root of returning. The Arabs said water thāba when a well filled again after the bucket had been drawn. Health thāba when strength came back after illness. A mathāba is a place people keep coming back to. And thawāb is what returns to you for what you did. One classical grammarian defined it exactly so: what comes back to its doer as the recompense of his deed, good or bad.

So the question at the end of the surah is really: has it come back to them? Has what they sent out returned?

Usually thawāb is used of reward. One commentator notes the edge in using it here. It is said with irony, like the words spoken to a proud man in the Fire elsewhere: 'Taste. You were the mighty, the honourable' (44:49). The mockers are 'rewarded' with exactly what they gave.

Picture a parcel that has travelled halfway across the country and back. It lands on the sender's doormat a week later, stamped in red: return to sender. Nothing about it has changed. It is exactly what he sent.

That is how the surah ends. The short measure, the wink, the jokes at the dinner table, the label 'tales of the ancients': each was sent out into the world. Each comes back to the one who sent it, like water rising in a well.

The same is true of good. The honest measure, the patient silence under mockery, the prayer kept when it was laughed at: they too return. The well fills again, and it fills with what was poured.

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.