وَقَالُوا۟ مَا هِىَ إِلَّا حَيَاتُنَا ٱلدُّنْيَا نَمُوتُ وَنَحْيَا وَمَا يُهْلِكُنَآ إِلَّا ٱلدَّهْرُ ۚ وَمَا لَهُم بِذَٰلِكَ مِنْ عِلْمٍ ۖ إِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ 24
Translations
And they say, "There is not but our worldly life; we die and live, and nothing destroys us except time." And they have of that no knowledge; they are only assuming.
Transliteration
Wa qāloo mā hiya illā hayātunā ad-dunyā namootu wa nahyā wa mā yuhlikuna illā ad-dahr. Wa mā lahum bi-dhālika min 'ilm. In hum illā yażunnoon.
Tafsir (Explanation)
This ayah refutes the materialist ideology of those who deny the Afterlife, claiming that life is only the temporal worldly existence where they die and live in endless cycles, and that only time (ad-dahr) destroys them. Ibn Kathir and Al-Qurtubi emphasize that Allah corrects this false belief by stating that such people possess no knowledge ('ilm) of this matter—they merely follow conjecture and assumption (zann), highlighting the baselessness of denying resurrection and divine judgment.
Revelation Context
This ayah appears in the Meccan surah Al-Jathiyah, which addresses the disbelievers' rejection of the Qur'an and the Afterlife. The broader context of the surah refutes the arguments of those who stubbornly deny resurrection and claim that worldly life is the only reality, a common position of Meccan polytheists and materialists of that era.
Related Hadiths
The Prophet (ﷺ) said in a hadith reported in Sahih Bukhari: 'The best of you are those who have the best character,' contrasting with the empty materialism condemned here. Additionally, Surah Al-Mu'minun (23:37) contains a nearly identical statement from disbelievers that the Prophet refuted, showing the recurring nature of this denial.
Themes
Key Lesson
This ayah teaches that rejecting the Hereafter stems not from evidence or knowledge, but from mere assumption and whim; believers must anchor their faith in revealed knowledge ('ilm) rather than popular opinion, and recognize that focusing solely on material life while denying accountability to Allah is intellectually baseless.