Surah At-Takathur, The Rivalry for Increase

Surah 102 · 8 verses · revealed at Mecca

At-Takathur opens by saying that the competition to have more has distracted you, until you visit the graves.

The word used in that last phrase is ordinary — the word for visiting — and commentators have long pointed out how much work it does. Early accounts say two clans of Mecca had fallen into an argument about which was more numerous, and had gone to count the dead in the cemetery when the living ran out.

What follows is four short lines that repeat themselves with a small change: no indeed, you will come to know; then again, no indeed, you will come to know; then, no indeed, if you knew with the knowledge of certainty. The repetition is the surah's whole argument, and it is about the difference between knowing something and knowing it.

The surah closes by saying that you will see the blazing fire, then that you will see it with the eye of certainty, and then, in its last verse, that you will be asked that day about the pleasures you enjoyed.

That final line is quoted far more than the rest. It is eight verses long, and one of the shortest chapters in the Qur'an to be given a whole literature of commentary.

Commentators have long asked what pleasures the last verse means. The most common answer given by the earliest generations was the plainest one: safety, health, and cool water — the things nobody thinks of as a pleasure until they are gone.

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