Al-Ghashiyah · Makki · ayah 25 of 26

Al-Ghashiyah 88:25

إِنَّ إِلَيْنَآ إِيَابَهُمْ

“Indeed, to Us is their return.”

Saheeh International

Essence

'To Us' comes first: every road, every escape and every detour ends at one door, the way travellers came home at nightfall.

A reflection

Every road ends at one door

A seventeen-year-old leaves her small seaside town for university and tells everyone she will never come back. The place is too slow, too small, too full of people who knew her at six. She builds a career in three cities. At forty-four, when her mother falls ill, she rents a flat two streets from the house she grew up in. One evening she walks along the sea front and laughs out loud at herself.

This ayah puts its most important words first. The normal order would be 'their return is to Us'. Instead it says inna ilaynā iyābahum: truly, to Us is their return. Classical commentators explain the reason. Putting 'to Us' first restricts it: their return is to Allah alone, not to anyone besides Him, neither on their own nor in partnership. One commentator hears the full weight of it: their return is only to the Compeller, able to exact every right.

That sits hard against human pride. We like to think of ourselves as free agents, choosing our paths and ending wherever we decide. We plan careers, exits, retirements, legacies. The ayah does not deny the journeys. It names their end. Whatever road a life takes, it arrives at one door.

Why does Allah speak of Himself as 'Us'? Some ask whether it implies more than one god. In Arabic the plural is a speech of majesty, as kings used it. And the phrase itself shuts out partners: to Us, one commentator notes, and to no one else, alone or alongside.

Is it domineering to say it? A child is not threatened by being told she will come home. The same root, as the next reflection shows, was used for coming back to one's family at nightfall. To return to the One who made you is not capture. It is where every road was always leading.

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.