Al-Layl · Makki · ayah 10 of 21

Al-Layl 92:10

فَسَنُيَسِّرُهُۥ لِلْعُسْرَىٰ

“We will ease him toward difficulty.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The same easing that smooths the giver's road smooths this one too, but this road runs downhill, and every step makes the next one easier.

A reflection

The sledge run gets faster every time

On a snowy hill, the first child to sledge down pushes through soft powder and stops halfway. The second goes a little further in the first one's tracks. By mid-afternoon the run is packed into an icy groove. Sledges fly down it with no pushing at all, and it is very hard to steer out.

The ayah uses a surprising verb. 'We will ease him towards hardship'. How can anyone be eased towards difficulty? An early grammarian raised the question himself. When good and bad are set side by side in one passage, he answered, the same word can serve both. The Quran does the same with 'give them good news of a painful punishment' (3:21). Others read yassara here as 'make ready', as a flock was made ready to give birth.

But the word is also strangely accurate. The hard road does not feel hard at first. It feels easy. Holding on to money is easier than giving it. Ignoring a call to prayer is easier than answering it. Each easy step down packs the groove a little more. One classical scholar described what follows. Evil comes to flow on the person's heart, his intentions, his tongue and his limbs. Doing good becomes the difficult thing, as one early commentator put it: it becomes hard for him to do any good at all.

The Quran's own word for the destination, al-ʿusrā, has its picture too. A camel ridden before it was broken in was ʿasīr: hard, tight, fighting you every step. A woman in a difficult labour was said to aʿsarat. The easy groove ends in a life like that: riding something that will not be led.

The groove is worth noticing early, while the snow is still soft. The first time you choose the easy wrong, it costs some effort. That is the moment to steer.

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.