وَأَن لَّيْسَ لِلْإِنسَـٰنِ إِلَّا مَا سَعَىٰ
Wa al laisa lil insaani illaa maa sa'aa
İnsan ancak çalıştığına erişir.
and that a person will have only what they strove for,
Saʿy is bodily exertion, the brisk walk of someone at work, and the sentence rests the whole account on effort itself, leaving outcomes out of it. The line is presented as something already written in the scriptures of Musa and Ibrahim, which gives it the weight of ancient law. Scholars have long differed over whether the reward of a deed can be directed to someone who has died, and this verse sits at the center of that discussion.