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78. An-Naba The Great News · Makkan
# Ayah/ 40

An-Naba 78:27–30 · Juz 30 · Makkan

Why the Reckoning Overtook Them

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The verseALWAYS SHOWN

إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا۟ لَا يَرْجُونَ حِسَابًا

Indeed, they were a people who did not expect any reckoning,QuranicpediaVerified

وَكَذَّبُوا۟ بِـَٔايَـٰتِنَا كِذَّابًا

and they denied Our signs with utter, willful denial.QuranicpediaVerified

وَكُلَّ شَىْءٍ أَحْصَيْنَـٰهُ كِتَـٰبًا

Yet everything We have recorded in a Book, set down in full.QuranicpediaVerified

فَذُوقُوا۟ فَلَن نَّزِيدَكُمْ إِلَّا عَذَابًا

So taste — for We shall never increase you in anything but torment.QuranicpediaVerified

In plain languageALWAYS SHOWN

Notice the quiet assumption the passage names first: these were people who never expected a day of accounting, so they brushed God's signs aside as if no one were watching. And a person who truly assumes nothing is recorded lives one way; a person who knows everything is seen and kept lives another — the difference shows up in an ordinary afternoon long before any reckoning. That is the awe folded into the line that nothing escaped notice: it was all set down, exactly, in a Book (78:29). But turn the line over and it stops being only a warning that the recompense grows and never lessens. If every small thing is written, it is because there is One to whom it all returns — not an indifferent universe but a Lord who keeps the account Himself. And if you slow down on that, something in you already knew it was being seen — that hush you feel when no one is watching and you still cannot quite act as though nothing matters. That knowing is not fear; it is your fitra recognizing its Owner. So the Book is finally an invitation: to live awake to the One who sees you, while the page you are still writing is open.

al-Saʿdī

Al-Saʿdī explains that the cause of the disbelievers' punishment is laid bare here: they did not hope for or fear a Day of Reckoning, so they neither prepared for it nor worked for it, and they brazenly rejected the signs and proofs God sent. Against this heedlessness God affirms that He has counted and written down every single thing, however small, in a precise record — so nothing of their deeds escapes accounting. Therefore on that Day they are told, 'Taste,' and the only thing that will ever be added to them is more torment, for there is no relief or reduction once recompense has begun.

Ibn Kathīr

Ibn Kathīr notes that they did not believe there would be a return or recompense for deeds, and so they denied God's verses and revealed signs with vehement, repeated denial (kidhdhāban). He observes that everything has been written down and preserved in a Book by His perfect knowledge, so their deeds are fully recorded and will be recompensed. The verse 'So taste, for We shall never increase you except in torment' he relates to the well-known reality that the people of Hell have their suffering only intensified, never lessened — a verse he reports as being among the most severe in the Book of God for them.

al-Ṭabarī

Al-Ṭabarī glosses 'lā yarjūna ḥisāban' as that they did not fear nor expect to be brought to account for their deeds in the abode of recompense, and so they lived without restraint. He explains 'kidhdhāban' as an intensive verbal noun meaning they belied Our proofs and arguments with the utmost lying and rejection. On 'kulla shayʾin aḥṣaynāhu kitāban' he says God enumerated and inscribed everything — their works and all else — writing it down so it is preserved against them, and then commands them on the Day of Resurrection to taste the punishment, promising no increase save in torment.

al-Qurṭubī

Al-Qurṭubī observes that not hoping for a reckoning is itself disbelief in the Resurrection, the root that led them to belie God's signs with the emphatic 'kidhdhāban,' which the grammarians treat as an intensive masdar. He affirms that God has recorded all things in writing — in the Preserved Tablet and in the records of the angels — so that accounting may be established with perfect justice. He cites that this verse, 'fa-dhūqū fa-lan nazīdakum illā ʿadhāban,' is reported among the harshest verses against the people of the Fire, for it cuts off every hope of mitigation.

Ayah18:49 — The Book that leaves out nothing small or great, recording every deed — a direct parallel to 'everything We have enumerated in a Book.'Ayah84:14 — 'He thought he would never return' — the denier who assumed no reckoning awaited him, echoing 'they did not expect a reckoning.'Ayah2:39 — Those who disbelieve and reject God's signs are companions of the Fire, abiding therein — parallel to 'they denied Our signs.'

Consider how a life lived as though there were no reckoning quietly shapes every choice; and how the knowledge that "everything is written" can turn the heart toward hope and care rather than fear alone.

QuestionWhy does Surah An-Naba say the disbelievers were punished because they 'did not expect any reckoning'?QuestionWhat does it mean that God has recorded 'everything in a Book' in An-Naba 78:29?QuestionWhy does An-Naba 78:30 say God will 'never increase them except in torment'?

MisconceptionCritics argue that a verse promising God will 'never increase you except in torment' depicts a cruel deity who escalates suffering endlessly, which seems disproportionate and unjust for finite human wrongs.

  1. 1Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān — ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī (c. 1955 CE)
  2. 2Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm — Ismāʿīl ibn Kathīr (c. 1370 CE)
  3. 3Jāmiʿ al-bayān — Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (c. 910 CE)
  4. 4al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān — al-Qurṭubī (c. 1260 CE)
An-Naba 78:27