“And those foremost, will be foremost.
Those are the ones brought near.”
[al-Waqi’ah: 10-11]

The sabiqun – those who are foremost in good deeds in this world – will be sabiqun (foremost) towards Paradise in the Hereafter. But something I was reading yesterday struck my interest in the next verse. It says that these people, on the Day of Judgement, will be ‘Muqarrabun‘. This means to draw close. However the usual word for that is ‘Mutaqarribun‘ which means to do something in order to get closer to something (i.e. they did deeds to get closer to Paradise). But here it says ‘Muqarrabun‘ which changes the picture completely because now it means that they being drawn close without any effort on their part and instead, other things are being brought close to them. The exertion of effort is reversed.

The foremost in this world exerted their efforts to get near to Paradise although it lies in the realm of another world. So when they reached that world, Paradise was moved and drawn close to them; as mentioned in other verses: “And Paradise will be brought near to the righteous.” [al-Shu’ara’: 90]

They no longer need to exert their efforts because it was accepted from them in a past world, wallahu a’lam. Masha’Allah, the language of the Qur’an is just incredible.

[Inspired by a text I was reading in Sh. al-‘Affani’s book ‘Wa-Sabiqun al-Sabiqun’]