Al-Ghashiyah · Makki · ayah 9 of 26

Al-Ghashiyah 88:9

لِّسَعْيِهَا رَاضِيَةٌ

“With their effort [they are] satisfied”

Saheeh International

Essence

At last it is safe to be pleased with your own effort: the striver sees where every tired step was heading, and wants nothing more.

A reflection

Every effort seen

A refuse collector has emptied the same street's bins every Tuesday for eleven years. Rain, frost, the week his father died. Nobody on the street knows his name. Then one December morning he finds a card taped to a bin lid, in a child's handwriting: thank you for taking our rubbish. He keeps it on the dashboard of the lorry for the rest of the year.

Most of us are hungry for exactly that. Not money, necessarily, but proof that our effort was noticed and went somewhere. Much modern work never gives it. You file the report, and it disappears into a system. You raise the children, and they grow up without ever quite saying it.

This ayah describes faces pleased li-saʿyihā, with their striving. The commentators say it means the obedience they strove at in the world, pleased on the Day because they now see its reward. The Quran promises this elsewhere, and uses the same root. Whoever wants the Hereafter and strives for it as it deserves, while a believer, their striving will be thanked (17:19). A person has only what he strove for, and his striving will be seen (53:39–40).

Allah needs none of it. It is you who are in need of Allah, and Allah is the Free of need, the Praised (35:15). He does not require our prayers, fasts and charity to fill a gap in Himself. The striving is for us, and so is the seeing. He counts what no one else counted, so that nothing we did for Him is lost.

That changes how ordinary effort feels. The unthanked Tuesday round, the report nobody reads, the patience nobody noticed: done for Him, none of it goes into a void. There is a Day when you will see all of it, and be pleased.

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.