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Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40:45-46

The Qurʾān · Sūra 40: Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) · verses 45-46

This commentary was written by Claude (Anthropic); it carries no religious authority and should be checked against the classical sources.

40/45-46

فَوَقَىٰهُ ٱللَّهُ سَيِّـَٔاتِ مَا مَكَرُوا۟ وَحَاقَ بِـَٔالِ فِرْعَوْنَ سُوٓءُ ٱلْعَذَابِ · ٱلنَّارُ يُعْرَضُونَ عَلَيْهَا غُدُوًّا وَعَشِيًّا

"God protected him from the evils of what they plotted; and the evil of the punishment closed in upon the family of Pharaoh: morning and evening they are exposed to the Fire."

فَوَقَىٰهُ — root و-ق-ي: to protect, to shield. In the twenty-first verse it was said mā kāna lahum mina'llāhi min wāq (they had no protector); here the same root is used of someone who is protected.

And what the protection was against is worth recording: sayyiʾāti mā makarūthe evils of what they plotted. The plot was laid; the verse does not say the plot was not laid, it says its outcome did not touch him.

وَحَاقَ — root ح-ي-ق: a thing's turning back upon its author and closing in on him. The lexicographers record that the word is used particularly in the context of "a plot enveloping the one who laid it".

غُدُوًّا وَعَشِيًّا — morning and evening. In the fifty-fifth verse the Prophet will be commanded to glorify bi'l-ʿashiyyi wa'l-ibkār (in the late afternoon and at daybreak). The same two times, in two separate scenes: one an exposure, the other a glorification. This is a contrast that can be verified within the sūra.

It is reported in the classical commentaries that inferences about the state of the barzakh have been drawn from this expression of the verse. I confine myself to transmitting the debate; no ruling is issued.


Roots analysed in this section

و-ق-يح-ي-ق

The whole of Sūrat Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin)