Vocabulary

Mutawaffīk (“Take you”): From (wafā) meaning complete reception, not from death.(534) A deceased person is called mutawaffā because their entire reality is taken; however, tawaffī is not exclusive to death, as the Qur’an also refers to a sleeping person as mutawaffā: “God takes the souls at the time of their death, and those who have not died in their sleep.”(535) In this verse, tawaffī is used for both death and sleep.

The Qur’an negates fawt (death, but lit. “fulfillment”) and affirms wafāt (receiving). God is the one who takes souls completely (mutawaffī), and this taking (tawaffī) is higher than fulfillment (istīfā), because in fulfillment the fulfiller takes the entire thing, but within its meaning there is seeking with effort, whereas tawaffī conveys the power to take the entire thing without effort.