Surah al-Inshiqāq

In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

[Surah al-Inshiqāq (84): Verse 19]

“You will surely pass from stage to stage (19).”

That is, one state after another. A person’s first stage is that of a drop of fluid, then a clinging clot, then a lump of flesh, then a fetus, then a newborn, then a nursing infant, then a weaned child; thereafter, he may be healthy or ill, rich or poor, spared affliction or afflicted—all the various conditions a person undergoes until he dies. Then he is resurrected, then made to stand before Allah, and finally enters Paradise or Hell.

The meaning, then, is: you will surely pass from one state to another, from one station to another, and from one circumstance to another.

Saʿīd ibn Jubayr and Ibn Zayd said: “You will surely enter the Hereafter after this first life, and you will become rich after poverty, and poor after wealth.”

ʿAtāʾ said: “One hardship after another.”

Both tabaq and tabaqa mean a state or condition. Hence the expression: “So-and-so has passed through various stages.”

ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs said: “I have indeed passed through three stages”—meaning three states.