وَمَا يُغْنِى عَنْهُ مَالُهُۥٓ إِذَا تَرَدَّىٰ
Three verses earlier it said اسْتَغْنَى: he did not see himself as in need. Now from the same root comes يُغْنِي: it will not avail, it will not meet his need.
This is the sharpest irony the sūra sets up. The man supposed himself ghanī (not in need); his wealth will not make him ghanī.
The Qurʾān uses this pattern in other places too: "His wealth and what he earned did not avail him" (Tabbat 111/2 — there mā aghnā); "Neither their wealth nor their children will avail them anything against God" (Āl ʿImrān 3/10, similarly at 3/116).
But the use in al-Layl is special, because within one and the same sūra it answers the man's own claim. What he said in the eighth verse is refuted in the eleventh — and in the refutation his own word is used.
Root: ر-د-ي. Its concrete sense is to fall from a high place, to roll down, to tumble into an abyss. Radā — destruction, perishing; because what falls perishes.
- مُتَرَدِّيَة (mutaraddiya) — an animal that dies by falling from a height. It is counted in the Qurʾān among the animals whose flesh is forbidden (al-Māʾida 5/3). This use shows the concrete sense of the root beyond dispute: an animal that has tumbled down and died.
- رَدَى (radā) — destruction. Ṭāhā 20/16: "Let it by no means turn you away from it, or you will perish" (fa-tardā).
- تَرْدِيَة — to bring down, to push into an abyss.
| Reading | Meaning | Ground |
|---|---|---|
| He died | He perished, his life went out | The "destruction" sense of the root |
| He fell into the grave | When he is lowered into the grave | The concrete counterpart of the sense of falling |
| He tumbled into the fire | When he falls into hell | The "falling from a height" sense of the root; the fire is named further on in the sūra |
The three do not exclude one another — when a person dies all three take place in turn. The word's being left unrestricted in this way is so that it may cover all three at once.
The force of the image. The word does not say "when he dies"; it says "when he tumbles down". Death is pictured not as a stopping but as a falling.
And this is connected with the first half of the sūra: in the fourth verse man was described as a running being (saʿy). Now the end of that running arrives: the runner tumbles. The same movement, the same speed — but now there is no control.
There is also the relation between wealth and this image. When someone carrying a weight in his hands begins to tumble, the weight does not save him; it speeds him up. I do not present this as the intent of the verse — it is my own reading — but it is a possibility standing ready in the image the word has chosen.