The 365 · Verses · Day 226 · Justice
Death is near, you are far from home - who will carry your last wishes honestly?
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ شَهَـٰدَةُ بَيْنِكُمْ إِذَا حَضَرَ أَحَدَكُمُ ٱلْمَوْتُ حِينَ ٱلْوَصِيَّةِ ٱثْنَانِ ذَوَا عَدْلٍ مِّنكُمْ أَوْ ءَاخَرَانِ مِنْ غَيْرِكُمْ إِنْ أَنتُمْ ضَرَبْتُمْ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَأَصَـٰبَتْكُم مُّصِيبَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ ۚ تَحْبِسُونَهُمَا مِنۢ بَعْدِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةِ فَيُقْسِمَانِ بِٱللَّهِ إِنِ ٱرْتَبْتُمْ لَا نَشْتَرِى بِهِۦ ثَمَنًا وَلَوْ كَانَ ذَا قُرْبَىٰ ۙ وَلَا نَكْتُمُ شَهَـٰدَةَ ٱللَّهِ إِنَّآ إِذًا لَّمِنَ ٱلْـَٔاثِمِينَ
“You who believe, when death approaches any of you, let two just men from among you act as witnesses to the making of a bequest, or two men from another people if you are journeying in the land when death approaches. Keep the two witnesses back after prayer, if you have any doubts, and make them both swear by God, 'We will not sell our testimony for any price, even if a close relative is involved. We will not hide God's testimony, for then we should be doing wrong.' (Quran 5:106)”
5:106 Read 5:106 with tafsir
Svenska: TROENDE! När någon bland er känner döden nalkas och vill förordna [om sin kvarlåtenskap, skall han tillkalla som] vittnen två av era rättsinniga män eller - om han befinner sig på resa och tror att döden är nära - två andra utanför [ert samfund]. Håll dem kvar efter bönen och om ni tvekar [om deras trovärdighet] låt dem svära vid Gud: "Vi skall inte göra oss någon vinst av detta, inte ens [till förmån] för en nära anförvant, och vi skall inte undanhålla vad vi på Guds befallning har bevittnat - i annat fall skulle vi sannerligen höra till förbrytarna och syndarna."
The story
This āyah opens a scene at the edge of life: a believer far from home, death approaching, wanting to settle a bequest. Ibn Kathir explains the ordinary rule - two just witnesses 'of your own,' meaning Muslims. Then comes a striking concession. If you are travelling and no Muslim witness is at hand, As-Sa'di writes, you may call two others 'from outside' - from the People of the Book or others - because necessity permits it. Ibn Kathir names the two conditions that unlock this allowance: you are on a journey, and death is upon you. To guard against abuse, the āyah builds in a safeguard. The witnesses are held back after the prayer - Ibn Kathir reports from Ibn Abbas that this is the 'Asr prayer, a time both communities revere - and if the heirs have any doubt, the two are made to swear by God. Their oath is scripted: we will not sell our testimony for any price, not even to favour a close relative, and we will not hide God's testimony. As-Sa'di observes that the oath is deliberately tied to the moment after worship, when hearts are most exposed to the fear of God. The whole design bends toward one end: that a dying person's rights, and the rights of every heir, survive the accident of dying among strangers. Justice, the āyah insists, does not lapse simply because the witnesses are foreigners or the deathbed is on a distant road.
In the language
Notice how the witnesses' oath names what they hold: 'wa lā naktumu shahādata-llāh' - 'we will not hide the testimony of Allah.' The testimony belongs to a dying stranger and concerns his worldly estate, yet the Qur'an attaches it to God's own name. Ibn Kathir draws out the effect: the testimony is called God's testimony as a way of exalting it and impressing its gravity on the one who bears it. A witness might weigh a human claim lightly - the dead man is gone, the heirs are far away, the sum is small. But reframe that same evidence as a trust that belongs to God, and its weight changes entirely. The genitive construction (shahādah joined to Allah) does quiet theological work: it lifts a mundane act of testimony out of the marketplace of favours and relatives - the very pressures the oath goes on to renounce - and sets it before the One who cannot be deceived. The words the witnesses must speak already contain the reason they must not lie.
Why this verse
A bequest made among strangers is fragile - easy to distort when the one who knows the truth is dead. This āyah refuses to let distance or foreign witnesses become a loophole through which an heir's right quietly disappears.
Bring it into today
You may never witness a deathbed bequest, but you will be handed things to safeguard on behalf of people who cannot check on you - a will's intentions, a shared inheritance, a promise made to someone now gone. This āyah trains you to treat that responsibility as heavier than the eyes watching it. The witnesses here swear they will not tilt the truth even for a close relative; ask yourself whether you would hold the same line when bending it would help your own family or friends. Notice too how the verse pairs testimony with prayer - the oath comes right after worship, because As-Sa'di says that is when the fear of God is most alive. When you next stand as the person who knows what really happened, let your account be one you could give straight after prayer, with nothing shaved off for the people you love.
A reflection to carry
We rarely think of favouritism as injustice - helping our own feels like loyalty, not wrongdoing. But the oath in this verse cuts through that: 'even if a close relative is involved.' The witnesses must promise not to sell their testimony for any price, and the most tempting price is not money, it is kinship. As-Sa'di notes the oath follows the prayer, when the heart is nearest the fear of God; Ibn Kathir calls the evidence 'God's testimony,' too weighty to trade. Where does loyalty quietly ask you to shade the truth - to defend the relative who is wrong, to remember events in the shape that flatters your side? Justice begins when you refuse to let love decide what you are willing to see.
Sources: Ibn Kathīr, al-Saʿdī. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
Also on Day 226
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