Surah Al-Kahf 18:52
سُورَةُ الكَهۡفِ · Meccan · Verse 52 of 110
وَيَوْمَ يَقُولُ نَادُوا۟ شُرَكَآءِىَ ٱلَّذِينَ زَعَمْتُمْ فَدَعَوْهُمْ فَلَمْ يَسْتَجِيبُوا۟ لَهُمْ وَجَعَلْنَا بَيْنَهُم مَّوْبِقًۭا
Translation
On the Day God will say, ‘Call on those you claimed were My partners,’ they will call them but they will not answer; We shall set a deadly gulf between them.
English translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
Meaning and reflection
'And the Day He will say: Call My partners whom you claimed, and they will call them, but they will not respond, and We will place between them a barrier of ruin.' al-Saadi and Ibn Kathir note the moment of exposure, every false 'partner' a person leaned on is summoned, and is utterly silent, revealing at last that there was never anything there to answer. Ask yourself: on that Day I will call out to everything I made a partner-god in practice, the wealth, the status, the person, the ideology I trusted to save me, and none will answer. The silence will be the proof that they were empty all along. It presses me to test my reliances now: if I called on them in ultimate need, would they respond? The things that will fail to answer then are failing to truly hold me now; I just haven't been desperate enough yet to hear the silence.
Grounded in classical tafsir: al-Saadi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Ashur.
Topics that discuss this verse
Surah Al-Kahf 18:52 is discussed in 3 study guides on Maani. Each guide gathers the key verses, Arabic words and lessons of one Quranic topic.
Reflect on this verse
Open Surah Al-Kahf 18:52 in Maani to reflect on it through the Five Lenses: its wording, its context, what it means for you, its connections across the Quran and its lessons, grounded in classical tafsir.