Before the door closes [63:10]

Our reflection for today is from Sura Munafiqoon:

وَأَنفِقُوا مِن مَّا رَزَقْنَاكُم مِّن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِيَ أَحَدَكُمُ الْمَوْتُ فَيَقُولَ رَبِّ لَوْلَا أَخَّرْتَنِي إِلَى أَجَلٍ قَرِيبٍ فَأَصَّدَّقَ وَأَكُن مِّنَ الصَّالِحِينَ

[63:10] And spend out of what We have given you before death comes to one of you, so that he should say: My Lord! why didst Thou not respite me to a near term, so that I should have given alms and been of the doers of good deeds?

وَلَن يُؤَخِّرَ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِذَا جَاء أَجَلُهَا وَاللَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ

[63:11] And Allah does not respite a soul when its appointed term has come, and Allah is Aware of what you do.

In these verses the Quran paints a serious picture: Imagine standing at the threshold of death and suddenly and clearly seeing everything you had, everything you were given, everything you could have done, all at once. Not as abstract possibility anymore, but as solid, undeniable reality. The time you had. The health you took for granted. The relationships you kept meaning to repair. The charity you deferred. The return to Allah you kept pushing to "later." But it is too late.

You call out desperately: My Lord, if only You would give me a little more time.

This is the scene the Quran places before us in Surah al-Munafiqoon. It is a sad and psychologically precise moment in the Quran, describing someone who finally, fully understands and sees the truth, though sadly at the exact moment when understanding can no longer be translated into action. The Quran does not give into this person’s regret. Verse 11 says: Allah will never delay a soul when its appointed time has come.

In other words, you had time, you could have changed your destiny while you were in the zone of action. It is no point regretting because you showed no remorse while you could have done something.

The difference between regret and remorse

This scene helps us understand something the tradition has always known but that contemporary psychology is only beginning to articulate carefully: regret and remorse are not the same thing, even though they often feel alike.

Regret is the pain of a closed situation. It is the emotion of a door that will not open again. The figure in 63:10 is in pure regret, the recognition is total, the pain is real, but the zone of action has permanently closed. This are similar cries in other verses: "Would that I had sent ahead for my life" (89:24), "Would that I had not taken so-and-so as a friend" (25:28). In each case, the person sees and understands but there is nothing left to do with that understanding. Regret without a zone of action is grief without remedy. Very sad and very scary.

Psychologists note that the deepest, most lasting regrets people carry are moral regrets meaning the times we failed in integrity, the harm we caused, the duties we neglected. These regrets are very painful because somewhere inside, we know it could have been different. That pain is what our faith calls remorse or Nadm.

From a spiritual perspective, remorse recognises the wrong while there is still time to move. This is why Imam Ali (as) places nadm [remorse] as the first condition of tawbah (Nahj al-Balagha, Hikmah 417). Not because suffering is the goal, but because genuine remorse is proof that the wrong has been truly realized. In other words, remorse reaches for the door while it is still open. Regret stands before a door that is already shut.

Regret says: I wish this had been different. Remorse says: I grieve what I have done and I can still do something about it.

The trap of postponement

The verse addresses the living by saying give from what We have provided before death comes to one of you. The deathbed cry is the warning. The Quran is saying: that cry is coming. The question is whether it will still be pure regret when it arrives, or whether you will have already taken action.

Imam Khomeini, in his commentary on the Seventeenth Hadith (Forty Hadith, Hadith Seventeen on Tawbah), describes the trap of postponement. He writes that the person who keeps telling himself "I will make a sound repentance at the end of my life, in old age" is engaged in wishful thinking and worse, is falling into a trap. The roots of sinfulness grow stronger with time. The springtime of tawbah, he says, is youth when the heart is still pliable, the darkness still incomplete, the conditions of return still within reach. He warns: "It often happens that death grants no respite for the thought of tawbah to occur."

This is precisely the person in 63:10. He did not plan to arrive at that moment unprepared. He simply kept postponing, and postponement is its own kind vicious cycle where it never seems to be the right moment.

Let us remind ourselves that the warnings in the Quran come from a place of Divine Love and Mercy, encouraging and nudging us into action while we are still in the zone of action and can change our destiny. He has told us that in this blessed month of Ramadan, the door to return is wide open. The tradition tells us that the gates of mercy are expanded in this month in ways they are not at other times. The night prayers, the fasting, the recitation all of it is a sustained invitation to act while we can still move.

We will be talking more about Tawbah in the coming days inshallah but today let us recognize the urgency of using remorse wisely before it hardens into regret.

Imam Ali (as) asks, in Nahj al-Balagha (Sermon 33): "Is there no one among you to repent for his deeds before his death, compensate for wrongs he has done and do good before the calamity of retribution descends upon him?"

The question is addressed to the living. That means us.

Questions for reflection

• Is there something we have been telling ourselves we will address "later", a relationship, an obligation, a habit, a return? What has "later" cost us so far?
• When you imagine the figure in 63:10, what is the specific thing he wishes he had given? What does your own version of that wish look like?

PS: Here is a webpage with lots of resources for a meaningful Laylatul Qadr: https://www.livingthequran.org/blog/Resources%20for%20Laylatul%20Qadr