Al-Layl · Makki · ayah 4 of 21

Al-Layl 92:4

إِنَّ سَعْيَكُمْ لَشَتَّىٰ

“Indeed, your efforts are diverse.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Like night and day, like male and female, your efforts run so far apart that they cannot possibly end in the same place.

A reflection

Two cars in the same lane

At seven in the morning, two cars sit side by side in the middle lane of a motorway, at the same speed. In one, a man is driving to sign a contract that will quietly cheat his business partner. In the other, a retired teacher is driving a boy she once taught to his first day as an apprentice. From the bridge above, the two cars look identical.

This is where the oaths land. One early authority said it plainly: the oath falls here. By the night and the day, by male and female: 'Truly, your striving is shattā'.

Saʿy is not a stroll. It is a brisk walk that is almost a run, a person moving with purpose towards what they want. Everyone in this ayah is moving. Shattā is the surprise. The Arabs used the root for a tribe's camp breaking up: people who had been together at night scattered across the desert by morning. A related word, shattān, measured how far apart two things stand. So the ayah does not say your efforts differ a little. It says they scatter, and end up worlds apart.

The Prophet ﷺ put the same truth in a single line. 'Every person goes out in the morning and sells himself. He either sets it free or ruins it' (Sahih Muslim). Two commentators on this surah cite that hadith here. The going out is the same. The sale is not.

That is the quiet shock of this ayah. Busyness proves nothing. The two drivers are both early, both focused, both tired. What separates them cannot be seen from the bridge. It is where the striving is headed and whom it is for. The next ayat will name the two directions. This one only asks you to stop admiring motion, and look at where it goes.

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.