ٱلْحَجّ : ١١

  • وَمِنَ And among
  • ٱلنَّاسِ the mankind
  • مَن (is he) who
  • يَعۡبُدُ worships
  • ٱللَّهَ Allah
  • عَلَىٰ on
  • حَرۡفٖۖ an edge
  • فَإِنۡ And if
  • أَصَابَهُۥ befalls him
  • خَيۡرٌ good
  • ٱطۡمَأَنَّ he is content
  • بِهِۦۖ with it
  • وَإِنۡ and if
  • أَصَابَتۡهُ befalls him
  • فِتۡنَةٌ a trial
  • ٱنقَلَبَ he turns
  • عَلَىٰ on
  • وَجۡهِهِۦ his face
  • خَسِرَ He has lost
  • ٱلدُّنۡيَا the world
  • وَٱلۡأٓخِرَةَۚ and the Hereafter
  • ذَٰلِكَ That
  • هُوَ [it]
  • ٱلۡخُسۡرَانُ (is) the loss
  • ٱلۡمُبِينُ clear
And of the people is he who worships Allāh on an edge.1 If he is touched by good, he is reassured by it; but if he is struck by trial, he turns on his face [to unbelief]. He has lost [this] world and the Hereafter. That is what is the manifest loss.
Footnotes
1 - At the edge of his religion, so to speak, i.e., with uncertainty, hypocrisy or heedlessness.
And among mankind there are those who worship God on a knife-edge: that is, with uncertainty in his worship - such [a person] has been likened the [knife-] edge of a mountain in his precariousness - if good [fortune] befalls him, [so that he enjoys] health and security with respect to his own self and his property, he is reassured by it; but if an ordeal befalls him, a trial or ill-health with regard to himself or his property, he makes a turnabout, that is, he reverts to disbelief, losing both this world, when what he had hoped for in it has eluded him, and the Hereafter, by [his] disbelief. That is the manifest loss.