Chapter 102 - 19
The Excess (Surah Al-Takathur)
(8 verses in total; revealed in Makkah)
A very short but impactful chapter that calls our attention to our misplaced priories in this life to the detriment of the life to come as well as our current life.
Key themes in this chapter are as follows:
- Rivalry, greed and competition for material goods and our ego keeps us distracted until we are about to step in the grave as death comes
- Using reason, knowledge and reflection would have been a better way to ascertain the realities of life before we are faced with the consequence of afterlife at which time we will have visual certainty but will have no room to amend or go back
- God will certainly question about how we have abused God’s blessings with consumerism, material pursuits and evils
In the Name of God, the God of Mercy, the Endower of Mercy!
Pursuit of excess keeps you distracted1
Until you visit the grave!2
Soon you will come to know
Yes, you will come to know soon enough!
Yes indeed, only if you had certainty of knowledge!3 (v. 1-5)
You will see the fire of Hell
Then you will have the certainty of your (own) eye-sight!
On that Day
You will be questioned about your acquisitions and their consumption!4 (v. 6-8)vc
1“takathur” has been interpreted as competing for increase or abundance in wealth but I have given it the notion when one gets consumed for excess that what is necessary and reasonable and when one loses perspective or purposefulness of those efforts
2Visitation is a temporary state as opposed to dwelling which is more of a permanent or longer term state
3Certainty based on knowledge is contrasted with and is considered better than certainly of eye-sight or direct experience. In the 21st century we might think about science (observation and direct experiment) vs. cognition, spiritual awakening and philosophical understanding on the nature of things and our own presence as a living being. These verses ( 7 and 5) and 56:95 make reference to three levels of certainly based on sight, knowledge and intuitive (philosophical and spiritual) sense of truth.
4“nayim” has been classically translated as blessings but in this context, it is more the pleasures of life that we get hooked into and as such get distracted from the true meaning and purpose of living, especially given our prevailing consumerism and materialism. Hence I have translated it as acquisitions and consumptions that dominates our life, even among Muslilms
