20. Know that the present, worldly life* is but a play, vain talk and ostentation, and mutual boasting among you, and competing in wealth and children – it is like when rain comes down and the vegetation grown by it pleases the famers, (but) then it dries up and you see it turn yellow, then it be- comes straw; and in the Hereafter there is a severe punishment, but also (there is) for- giveness from God and His good pleasure (which are everlasting), whereas the present, worldly life is but a transient enjoy- ment of delusion.
*The expression translated as the present, worldly life also means the basic elements or attributes of the present life. So by this expression the Qur’an denotes, rather than the world, the life that pertains to the bodily or material dimension of human existence. Otherwise the world is the field to be sown for harvest in the Hereafter, and is also the place where God’s Names are manifested.