حَتّىٰ إِذا جاءَنا قالَ يا لَيتَ بَيني وَبَينَكَ بُعدَ المَشرِقَينِ فَبِئسَ القَرينُ
Until when he comes to Us, he will say: ‘I wish there had been between me and you the distance between east and west! What an evil companion [are you]!’
EXEGESIS
Ḥattā (until) serves as a temporal marker, indicating the point at which the actions described in the previous verse – namely, the devil’s attempts to obstruct divine remembrance and the individual’s misguided belief in their own righteousness – come to an end. It emphasises that the continuous process of being led astray and falsely believing that one is guided will persist until the moment the individual meets their Lord on the Day of Judgement.
Al-Mashriqayn literally translates to ‘the two easts’ but is commonly understood to signify ‘east and west’. This usage exemplifies a rhetorical device in Arabic called taghlīb (subsumption), where a single term in the dual form represents two distinct entities. In the case of al-mashriqayn, the east appears to subsume the west, bringing it under its own name. Other examples of such usage are al-shamsān (lit. the two suns) which means the sun and the moon, al-ẓuhrān (lit. the two ẓuhrs) which means the two prayers of ẓuhr and ʿaṣr, and al-ʿishāʾān (lit. the two ʿishāʾs) which means the two prayers of maghrib and ʿishāʾ.
In the current verse, the distance between east and west is figurative, to indicate maximum distance.
EXPOSITION
This verse describes the state, on the Day of Judgement, of those who turn a blind eye to the remembrance of the All-Beneficent. The fact that they would want to distance themselves from their devil companion on that day suggests that in addition to the punishment of the fire of hell, the company of these devils on that day is also another layer of punishment. The reason why they would want to distance themselves from these companions, in addition to their evil nature and tormenting presence, is because these companions are a manifestation of all they have lost, and is a symbol of their misery, a companion that barred them from the right path and decorated for them all their evil acts. On the day that reality will be exposed to them, they would wish nothing but to be as far away as possible from such companions.
An alternative understanding of this verse suggests that those who neglected the remembrance of God may wish, in retrospect, to have been distanced from their devilish companion in this worldly life, thus avoiding the beguilement that led them astray.
Another perspective proposes a broader interpretation, in which the desire for distance from the devil companion applies not only to this world but also to the hereafter. See also 2:166-167 and 29:25.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
According to some exegetes, al-mashriqayn does not mean ‘east and west’ but rather ‘the east of summer and east of winter’ (see also 55:17); as such, this could be understood as a reference to the distance between the point from which the sun rises at the winter solstice and the point from which it rises at the summer solstice.
According to Rāzī, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west while the moon begins its journey from the west at the beginning of the month, before proceeding towards the east. The rising of the sun, sharaqa, is derived from the same root letters (sh-r-q) used to make the word mashriq (east). As such, mashriqayn, two mashriqs, refers to the place of the rising of the sun (mashriq al-shams), the east, and the place of the rising of the moon (mashriq al-qamar), the west.
[1] Mizan, 18/103.
[2] Amthal, 16/57.
[3] Mizan, 18/103; Qaraati, 8/456.
[4] Amthal, 16/56-57.
[5] Tibyan, 9/200; Makhzan, 12/26.
[6] Furqan, 26/321.
[7] Tibyan, 9/200.
[8] Razi, 27/633.