ٱللَّهُ يَتَوَفَّى ٱلْأَنفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا وَٱلَّتِى لَمْ تَمُتْ فِى مَنَامِهَا فَيُمْسِكُ ٱلَّتِى قَضَىٰ عَلَيْهَا ٱلْمَوْتَ وَيُرْسِلُ ٱلْأُخْرَىٰٓ إِلَىٰٓ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى
"God takes the souls at the time of their death; and the one that has not died, in its sleep. Then He holds back the one for which He has decreed death, and releases the other until an appointed term."
The verse sets out two states with a single verb: yatawaffā — root و-ف-ي, "to take in full, to receive complete".
| Verb | To whom | What |
|---|---|---|
| Yumsiku | The one for which death is decreed | He holds it back |
| Yursilu | The other | He releases it — ilā ajalin musammā |
Both verbs are concrete: to hold and to let go. A thing held in the hand is either not released or released.
I record this as my own reading: by putting something lived through every night (sleep) into the same category as death, the verse brings the proof down into daily life. Every night a person is left without consciousness and comes back; the coming back is itself set out as a permission.
أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى — "a term that has been named". The same construction was treated in al-Aḥqāf at 46/3 (of the term of the universe) — here the same expression is used of a single human being.