At-Tin · Makki · ayah 6 of 8

At-Tin 95:6

إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ فَلَهُمْ أَجْرٌ غَيْرُ مَمْنُونٍ

“Except for those who believe and do righteous deeds, for they will have a reward uninterrupted.”

Saheeh International

Essence

One door out of the fall: faith that rests its weight on Allah, and deeds that keep going, with a reward that outlasts our strength.

A reflection

Still counted at the table she once cooked for

For twenty years a woman cooked for her mosque's community meal every Ramadan. Huge pots of rice, trays of chicken, dates counted out by the hundred. Now she is eighty and uses a wheelchair. She sits at the end of the long table while younger women serve. She worries, quietly, that she is no longer useful.

The Prophet ﷺ answered that worry directly. A servant may fall ill or travel, he said. Then there is written for him 'the like of what he used to do when healthy and at home' (Sahih al-Bukhari). Some early authorities read this ayah in the same light. Suppose a person obeyed Allah in his youth and then grew too old to act. His good deeds from his youth, one of them said, are written for him still. Another said the believer who reaches extreme old age has written for him the best of what he used to do.

Allah needs none of the cooking, the praying or the giving. 'Whoever does good, it is for himself' (41:46). But He has arranged the record so that a believer's worth is not cancelled when her strength is. The ledger keeps her name at the table.

That speaks straight to one of the deepest modern fears: becoming useless. A culture that values people by what they produce leaves the old, the ill and the disabled feeling like a cost. The ayah offers a different measure. What you gave while you could is still being counted, and the faith you carry is still yours.

'Truly, in the remembrance of Allah hearts find rest' (13:28). The woman in the wheelchair can still remember Him. That, too, is a deed, and nothing about her age can stop it being written down.

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.