Surah Al-Hadid · 57:20
QuranHive
The reality of worldly life
اعْلَمُوا أَنَّمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا لَعِبٌ وَلَهْوٌ وَزِينَةٌ وَتَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُمْ وَتَكَاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ ۖ كَمَثَلِ غَيْثٍ أَعْجَبَ الْكُفَّارَ نَبَاتُهُ ثُمَّ يَهِيجُ فَتَرَاهُ مُصْفَرًّا ثُمَّ يَكُونُ حُطَامًا ۖ وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ عَذَابٌ شَدِيدٌ وَمَغْفِرَةٌ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرِضْوَانٌ ۚ وَمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا مَتَاعُ الْغُرُورِ
“Know that the life of this world is but play, amusement, adornment, mutual boasting, and rivalry in wealth and children — like rain whose vegetation delights the farmers. Then it grows, and you see it turn yellow; then it becomes nothing but brittle, crushed remnants. And in the Hereafter there is a severe punishment and forgiveness from Allah and approval (or contentment). And life of this world is nothing but a deceiving (temporary) enjoyment (or means of deception)”.
The dominant pattern
Play, diversion, adornment, boasting, and rivalry for increase describe the dominant states of worldly life. Wealth and children within the final pursuit can also be counted separately, producing six matters.
The ayah does not deny the existence of worldly activity. It exposes the forms that dominate when material life becomes its own purpose.
Ibn ‘Ashour identifies أَنَّمَا with a Fat’hah on the Hamzah as the sister of إِنَّمَا with a Kasrah on the Hamzah. Both convey restriction, حَصْر. The restriction describes what is true of the majority of people and confines their dominant worldly states to these matters.
The five pursuits
Activity without seriousness, commonly used to pass time, escape boredom, or produce enjoyment.
Gratification that distracts the self from fatigue, sorrow, distress, reality, and serious concerns.
Physical or intangible beautification intended to make the person or surroundings pleasing to observers.
Speech and conduct that build pride through real or imagined merits, status, qualities, and lineage.
Intensified accumulation and competition to possess more wealth, property, children, gains, or accomplishments.
لَعِب and لَهْو relate more directly to personal amusement, gratification, and escape.
زِينَة, تَفَاخُر, and تَكَاثُر increasingly concern appearance, reputation, comparison, and how others perceive a person.
Language and human development
لِعِب is an utterance or action intended for joking or fun, undertaken to pass time, dispel loneliness, stillness, silence, or boredom, and bring joy to the self.
Play dominates childhood and varies among people according to their development and the strength or weakness of their intellects. Excessive play beyond its proper stage signals a deficiency of mind.
The people of Ibrahim (as) said: أَجِئْتَنَا بِالْحَقِّ أَمْ أَنتَ مِنَ اللَّاعِبِينَ “Have you come to us with the truth, or are you among those who play (Al-Laa’ibeen)?” [Al-Anbiyaa’: 55]
لِعِب is the opposite of جِدّ: seriousness.
لَهْو is an act or utterance intended to delight the self and distract it from bodily fatigue, sorrow, distress, reality, or serious matters.
لَهَا عَنِ الشَّيْءِ means that a person became preoccupied away from something. Diversion dominates youth and appears throughout worldly life in the pursuit of pleasures and amusements that distract and gratify without serving a real purpose.
زِينَةٌ beautifies a person or surroundings through means that make their appearance pleasing to the onlooker. Human nature inclines toward appearing attractive in the eyes of others.
Adornment dominates many worldly conditions because dwellings and garments are often sought for beautification. It can be physical or intangible.
تَفَاخُرٌ is speech through which a person boasts and builds pride. الفَخْر is a person’s speech about personal merits and praiseworthy qualities, whether true or false.
Boasting commonly intensifies in middle age and full adulthood. It includes showing off, self-admiration, envy, and pride in ancestry and forefathers.
Ustadh Nu’man comments that jealousy also arises from زِينَةٌ, adornment and beautification.
تَكَاثُرٌ follows the pattern تَفَاعُل and derives from كَثْرَة, abundance. The pattern intensifies the act until it resembles contention with another person to possess more.
A person who seeks abundance looks toward someone who already possesses much of the desired thing and becomes preoccupied with surpassing that person.
تَكَاثُرٌ also describes going beyond proper limits in gathering wealth. It includes obsession with making more, whether direct competition exists or not, and dedicating time and effort to accumulation as an end in itself.
Play, diversion, adornment, boasting, and rivalry for increase dominate much of its content. The five pursuits revealed over 1,400 years ago remain directly observable in present reality.
Classical perspectives
The fifth (category) is His saying: وَتَكَاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ “And vying in the increase of wealth and children”. Ibn ‘Abbas said: He amasses wealth in a manner that incurs Allah’s wrath, then boasts of it over the friends of Allah, and spends it in the places or upon things that anger Allah; so that it becomes layers of darkness, accumulated one above another. And there is no way for those devoted to worldly life to escape these categories (i.e., all five mentioned in the Ayah although the fifth can be divided into two to make six). He (i.e., Allah) also clarified that when a person’s worldly condition is not free of such aspects, he must turn away from them towards that which leads to the cultivation of the Hereafter.
Concerning: وَتَكَاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ “And vying amongst one another in wealth and children”: That is because the custom of the Jaahiliyyah (Pre-Islamic period) was to boast about having many sons and much property, whereas the vying of the believers amongst one another is in Iman and obedience.
‘لَعِبٌ (La’ib) “Play” is like the play of small children, لَهْوٌ (Lahw) “Diversion, distraction and amusement” is like the diversion, distraction and amusement of youths, زِينَةٌ (Zeenah) “Adornment” like the adornment of women, تَفَاخُرٌ (Tafaakhur) “Boasting” is like the boasting between peers, and تَكَاثُرٌ (Takaathur) “Mutual vying to seek increase” is like the rivalry between men of importance (land-owners etc.). And it was said: The meaning is that the world resembles all of these things in its passing and its perishing.
The parable of rain
كَمَثَلِ غَيْثٍ أَعْجَبَ الْكُفَّارَ نَبَاتُهُ ثُمَّ يَهِيجُ فَتَرَاهُ مُصْفَرًّا ثُمَّ يَكُونُ حُطَامًا Rain arrives when most needed, in a beneficial amount, saving and reviving the land.
The vegetation flourishes and pleases those who cultivated it.
Beauty weakens, vitality fades, and what once delighted the observer loses its appeal.
The crop becomes brittle, valueless, unusable, and ready to scatter at the slightest touch.
الْكُفَّارَ is the plural of الكافِر and derives from كَفَرَ, whose original meaning is to cover. Crop farmers cover seed with soil: كفَرَ الزّارِعُ البِذْرَ بالتُّرَاب, “The farmer covered the seed with the dirt”.
A disbeliever covers what should be acknowledged: a blessing, sign, or truth. The use of الْكُفَّارَ rather than the more common الزُّرَّاعَ, used in the parable in Surah Al-Fat’h 29, allows both meanings to resonate. The farmer delights in a crop that will perish, while the disbeliever delights in a worldly life that will perish.
The ayah shifts from the third-person farmers to the second-person تَرَى, “you see.” The listener no longer remains a distant observer. The parable becomes a personal experience of worldly decline.
Attachments to worldly life also yellow with time. Play, amusement, adornment, prideful boasting, and rivalry in wealth and progeny lose the value they once appeared to hold.
حُطَامًا comes from the root ح ط م, which means to crush, break into pieces, reduce to debris, or render unusable. The plant has lost its life, beauty, benefit, and value.
Everything pursued as a worldly end eventually reaches this condition. At death, play, amusement, adornment, boasting, wealth, property, and progeny cannot retain the value projected onto them or benefit the person who treated them as ultimate aims.
What remains
وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ عَذَابٌ شَدِيدٌ وَمَغْفِرَةٌ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرِضْوَانٌ
Plunging into the conditions of worldly life as ultimate ends carries consequences in the Hereafter.
مَغْفِرَةٌ مِّنَ اللَّهِ explicitly attributes forgiveness to Allah.
رِضْوَانٌ can encompass Allah’s pleasure with a person and the person’s contentment with Allah. For the one who receives forgiveness and approval, nothing will turn yellow again.
مَغْفِرَةٌ is used in the Qur’an for Allah and for human forgiveness: قَوْلٌ مَّعْرُوفٌ وَمَغْفِرَةٌ خَيْرٌ مِّن صَدَقَةٍ يَتْبَعُهَا أَذًى “Kind speech and forgiveness (Maghfirah) are better than charity followed by injury” (Al-Baqarah: 263).
غُفْران is used exclusively in relation to Allah in the Qur’an: غُفْرَانَكَ رَبَّنَا وَإِلَيْكَ الْمَصِيرُ “(We seek) Your Forgiveness (Ghufraan), our Lord, and to You is the final destination” (Al-Baqarah: 285).
Both words come from the root ر ض ي and convey pleasure, approval, and contentment. رِضْوَانٌ is used in the Qur’an only in relation to Allah.
مَرْضَات is used in relation to Allah and others: تَبْتَغِي مَرْضَاتَ أَزْوَاجِكَ “You are seeking the Mardaat (approval/pleasure) of your wives” (At-Tahrim: 1).
The dominance of mercy
وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ عَذَابٌ شَدِيدٌ “And in the Hereafter there is a severe punishment”, that is because it is from the consequences of plunging into the conditions of worldly life detailed (i.e., in this Ayah in terms of La’ib, Lahw, Zeenah, Tafaakhur and Takaathur) and there is also a tremendous forgiveness from Allah and a vast pleasure whose worth cannot be measured. By contrasting the severe punishment (i.e., one thing) with two things (forgiveness and pleasure) is an indication of the dominance of mercy, and it falls under the principle: لَن يَغْلِبَ عُسْرٌ يُسْرَيْن ‘Hardship shall never overcome two eases.’ And the omission of attributing the punishment to Allah, while explicitly attributing what follows it (forgiveness and pleasure) to Him, is another indication of this dominance, and symbolises that goodness is the primary, intended aim.
وَمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا مَتَاعُ الْغُرُورِ
The ayah begins by restricting worldly life to play, amusement, adornment, boasting, and rivalry for increase. It ends by restricting worldly life to a means through which deception occurs and an enjoyment characterized by deception.
The five pursuits reveal the forms of deception. The parable reveals its process: attraction, flourishing, decline, and destruction. Worldly desires pass, while the person deceived by glitter and outward appearance becomes engrossed in what cannot remain.
مَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا مَتَاعُ الْغُرُورِ “And the life of this world is nothing but a deceptive enjoyment” for the one who becomes content with it and does not make it a means to the Hereafter nor a mount (that takes its rider) toward its bliss.
The worldly life is a deceptive enjoyment if it has distracted you from seeking the Hereafter. But if it calls you toward seeking Allah’s pleasure and the Hereafter, then what an excellent thing it is to obey, and what an excellent means it is.
Worldly life becomes deception when it distracts from Allah and the Hereafter. It becomes an excellent means when it is used for obedience, Allah’s pleasure, and the cultivation of the Hereafter.