Al-Inshiqaq · Makki · ayah 10 of 25

Al-Inshiqaq 84:10

وَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِىَ كِتَـٰبَهُۥ وَرَآءَ ظَهْرِهِۦ

“But as for he who is given his record behind his back,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Some receive their record from behind their backs, the very place where they kept the Book of Allah all their lives.

A reflection

'I've put it behind me'

English has a phrase for deciding to stop thinking about something: 'I've put it behind me'. We say it of a bad relationship, a failed exam, a warning we did not want to hear. What is behind you cannot be seen. That is the point of putting it there.

Arabic had the same idea, and this ayah turns it round. Wa-ammā man ūtiya kitābahu warāʾa ẓahrih: but as for the one given his record from behind his back. The early explanations describe it physically. His right hand is bound, and his left is twisted behind him, so the book is handed to him from behind. One early scholar pictured the left hand pulled round behind his back.

But one classical commentator offers another reason, drawn from the Quran's own language. Perhaps, he says, it is because they threw the Book of Allah behind their backs. The phrase is the Quran's. Of those who once received scripture it says: 'they threw it away behind their backs' (3:187). Elsewhere: 'they threw the Book of Allah behind their backs as if they did not know' (2:101). The prophet Shuʿayb told his people: 'you have put Him behind your backs, neglected' (11:92).

The lexicons confirm the picture. Whatever you choose to ignore, the Arabs said, you throw behind your back; the word ẓihriyy, 'put behind the back', comes from the same root. So the posture of that Day is not arbitrary. It is the shape of a whole life, made visible. What he kept behind him now comes to him from behind.

That should unsettle each of us a little, not only the disbeliever. Every Muslim has something from the Book that we have quietly put behind us. An ayah about backbiting that we skip. A command about prayer we have decided is for more religious people. A warning about money we would rather not read.

The ayah invites a simple, brave act. Turn round. Pick up the thing you put behind you and look at it while it is still an ayah and not yet a record. What is faced now can be mended. What is kept behind the back will one day be handed back from there.

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.