Al-Layl · Makki · ayah 21 of 21

Al-Layl 92:21

وَلَسَوْفَ يَرْضَىٰ

“And he is going to be satisfied.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The surah that opened in covering darkness closes in contentment: the one who wanted nothing from anyone will be given until he is well pleased.

A reflection

We're here

A family drives through the night to reach the coast. The children fall asleep in the back somewhere after midnight. The parents take turns at the wheel through rain and roadworks. Then the sky greys, the road crests a hill, and there is the sea. The father reaches back and touches a small knee. 'We're here'.

This surah began in the dark. 'By the night when it covers' (92:1). It moved through the day, the two kinds of striving and the two roads, the warning and the fire. Now it ends with three words: wa la-sawfa yarḍā. 'And he will surely be well pleased'.

The wording carries a great deal of certainty. One classical commentator reads the sentence as the answer to an unspoken oath: 'And, by Allah, he will be well pleased'. So the surah that opened with oaths by the night and the day closes with an oath too, this time hidden in the grammar. La-sawfa adds emphasis to a future: it will surely come, even if not yet. The same commentator calls it a noble promise. He will attain everything he sought, in the most complete and beautiful way, and that is how contentment comes about.

Other commentators fill in what pleases him. He will be given in Paradise what pleases him, many times what he spent, one says. Another: he will be pleased with the reward Allah gives him, in exchange for what he gave in the world. A short classical commentary adds that the promise includes anyone who acts as he did.

The giver in this surah spent through the dark: tortured slaves bought, an unsympathetic father answered, suspicion endured. The ayah does not tell him the journey was easy. It tells him how it ends. Someone will reach back, at the end of the night, and say: you are here.

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.