Al-Ghashiyah · Makki · ayah 14 of 26

Al-Ghashiyah 88:14

وَأَكْوَابٌ مَّوْضُوعَةٌ

“And cups put in place”

Saheeh International

Essence

After couches raised up come cups set down at the spring's edge: here no one is made to drink, and no one must ask.

A reflection

Raised, then set down

Two ayat, side by side, use two opposite roots. The couches are marfūʿa, raised (88:13). The cups are mawḍūʿa, set down (88:14). The lexicons define each word by the other: rafʿ is the opposite of waḍʿ.

The root of mawḍūʿa has a family worth meeting. A mother 'sets down' what she carried when she gives birth. A creditor 'sets down' a debt when he lets it go. A war 'sets down its burdens' when it ends (47:4). And from the same root comes tawāḍuʿ, humility: setting yourself down.

The Prophet ﷺ joined the two roots in one sentence. No one humbles himself for Allah, tawāḍaʿa, except that Allah raises him, rafaʿahu (Sahih Muslim). Setting down, then raising. The order of these two ayat, read backwards, is the path of a believer's life.

Picture the end of a university graduation day. The gowns have gone, the families have driven off, the hall is empty. A porter comes back for his coat and finds the vice-chancellor there in shirtsleeves. She is stacking the plastic chairs onto trolleys, twelve at a time, with two of his colleagues. She does not make a speech about it. She simply noticed there were not enough hands.

Nobody who saw it thought less of her. Several of them remembered it for years. That is how tawāḍuʿ tends to work, even here. The person who sets herself down is quietly raised in the eyes of those who see it. The hadith promises that Allah does the same, far more completely.

The Garden holds both movements. Couches are lifted up for the guests; cups are set down within their reach. Perhaps a person who learned to set himself down in this life will feel most at home there.

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.