al-Ghāshiya 88:2-3

Wujūhun yawmaʾidhin khāshiʿa — ʿāmilatun nāṣiba "There are faces that day, brought low; having laboured, having grown weary."

The sūra does not say "people", does not say "the unbelievers", does not say "a certain sort of persons". It says "faces".

This choice is repeated in the passages of the Qurʾān that recount the day of reckoning:

• "That day some faces are radiant, looking towards their Lord; that day some faces are scowling" (al-Qiyāma 75/22-24).
• "That day some faces are bright, laughing and rejoicing; that day upon some faces there is dust" (ʿAbasa 80/38-40).
• "On the day when some faces will whiten and some faces will blacken…" (Āl ʿImrān 3/106).

Why the face? Three reasons can be given:

One. The face is the part of a person that cannot be hidden. The body is covered, the face is not. A person's state is read there first.

Two. The face is the seat of identity. What separates one human being from another is his face. To speak by way of the face is to speak without reducing the person to a number and without naming him either.

Three. This accords with the Qurʾān's method of speaking by way of attributes. The principle recorded in the discussion of al-Humaza is at work here too: the text does not give the name of a group, it describes a state. Whoever is in that state is included in it.

Its coming indefinite is meaningful too: wujūhun — "some faces". Not definite. Which faces is not said; nor is their number given.

Root: خ-ش-ع. To be lowered, to bow down, to shrink, to be made small. The concrete uses of the root open the sense:

• For the voice: "Voices are hushed before the All-Merciful" (Ṭāhā 20/108). Khushūʿ is the lowering of the voice.
• For the soil: "You see the earth with its neck bowed; and when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells" (Fuṣṣilat 41/39). Here khāshiʿa means dried, collapsed, lifeless soil.
• For the eye: "They will come out of the graves with their eyes cast down" (al-Qamar 54/7).

That is, khushūʿ is a lowering visible from outside: the hushing of the voice, the bowing of the neck, the falling of the eye.

The real nicety here is this: the Qurʾān also uses khushūʿ as the praised quality of worship — "The believers have prospered: those who are humble in their prayers" (al-Muʾminūn 23/1-2). The same word is here the first attribute in a depiction of punishment.

The difference lies in whether or not it is voluntary. The khushūʿ of prayer is a lowering that is chosen. The khushūʿ of that day is compulsory. The person is not lowering himself; he finds himself lowered.

Beneath this lies a silent finding of the sūra, and I write it as my own reading: there is no such option as not bowing; only when to bow can be chosen. The one who does not bow in this world is found bowed on that day. The difference is that one is voluntary and the other compulsory.

Two active participles side by side, without a conjunction. It is rendered in English "having laboured, having grown weary", but one has to dwell on both words.

عَمِلَ — root: ع-م-ل. To do work, to labour, to expend effort. One of the verbs the Qurʾān uses most often; the word ʿamal comes from here. There is nothing negative in the word — the construction ʿamilū'ṣ-ṣāliḥāt (those who do righteous works) occurs dozens of times in the Qurʾān.

نَصِبَ — root: ن-ص-ب. To grow weary, to be worn out, to undergo hardship. But the concrete and original sense of the root is "to set up, to plant upright". Its derivatives show this:

• نُصُب (nuṣub) — a stone set up, an idol planted upright; its plural is anṣāb (al-Māʾida 5/90).
• مَنْصِب (manṣib) — the place where something is set up; hence "office, post". English does the same with post: an upright timber driven into the ground, and also the office a man holds.
• نَصَب (naṣab) — weariness. "No weariness will touch us there" (Fāṭir 35/35); "Satan has touched me with weariness and torment" (Ṣād 38/41).

That weariness should be derived from "being set upright" gives the picture of the word: the weary one is the one who stands as though planted, who cannot sit, who cannot rest. Weariness here is not a feeling but a stance.

And now the link that comes from within the sūra: the same root will occur again sixteen verses later — "do they not look at the mountains, how they were set up?" (88/19, nuṣibat). The same verb, one for faces and one for mountains.

The mountains were set up and stood; those faces were set up and grew weary. The one a firm standing, the other an unending remaining on one's feet. That the word returns in this way within the sūra is a fact standing in the text; the sense I draw from it is my own reading.

This is the verse's most disputed side. ʿĀmila nāṣiba — labouring, growing weary. But when?

My preference is the first view, and its ground is this: in the sūra's opposing tableau (88/9) it says "well pleased with its own striving", and the striving there (saʿy) is beyond dispute the striving in this world. If the two tableaux mirror one another, the ʿamal here must look to this world too. But this is not binding; the second view too has its ground in the text and has a strong place in the classical sources.

This has to be added: whichever view is taken, the sense the sentence produces does not change. Whether in this world or in the hereafter, what is described is labour that yields nothing.

This is the road to the heart of the sūra.

The verse does not describe an idle person. On the contrary: it describes someone who works, who grows weary, who gives his effort. And it places him at the edge of the fire.

This runs against the accustomed logic of religious texts. What is expected is that the penalty should come from not doing. Here the penalty comes from the doing being done in the wrong place.

The concept of khusr treated in the discussion of al-ʿAṣr fits exactly here. There this finding was made: khusr is not an emotional word but an entry in an account — the balance coming out negative when the reckoning is closed. And there the Qurʾān's sharpest expression was used:

"Say: shall we tell you who are the greatest losers in respect of their works? They are those whose every effort in the life of this world has gone astray, while they supposed they were doing fine work" (al-Kahf 18/103-104).

The conclusion drawn from this verse in the discussion of al-ʿAṣr was this: the most dangerous loss is the loss that is not noticed. The person is working, producing, busy, even content — and the balance sheet is negative.

al-Ghāshiya takes one step further. The verse of al-Kahf states the effort's going for nothing. al-Ghāshiya states having worked and grown weary — that is, it records not only the outcome of the labour but its cost as well. The person has not merely failed to gain; he has grown weary in addition, in order not to gain.

The Qurʾān sets this idea up elsewhere too:

"We shall turn to every work they did and make it scattered dust" (al-Furqān 25/23). The image here is very concrete: habāʾan manthūrā — dust dispersing in the air, impossible to hold. The work has been done, nothing has remained.

"The works of those who disbelieve are like a mirage on a plain; the thirsty man supposes it to be water, and when he comes to it he finds nothing" (al-Nūr 24/39). The nicety of the mirage simile lies here: the person walking towards the mirage really walks. The road is covered, he sweats, he grows weary. What is false is not the road but the destination.

These three verses surround al-Ghāshiya 88/3 and all say the same thing: the Qurʾān does not count labour a value in itself. The question it asks is not "did you work?" but "what did you work towards?"

The finding in the discussion of al-Layl connects here as well: inna saʿyakum la-shattā — "your strivings are scattered." As was recorded there, the verse does not say "people do different works"; it says "they are not going to the same place." al-Ghāshiya shows one end of that scattering.