38حَتّىٰ إِذا جاءَنا قالَ يا لَيتَ بَيني وَبَينَكَ بُعدَ المَشرِقَينِ فَبِئسَ القَرينُMuhammad AsadBut in the end,1 when he [who has thus sinned] appears before us [on Judgment Day], he will say [to his other self], "Would that between me and thee there had been the distance of east and west!"2 - for, evil indeed [has proved] that other self!Lit., "until".Thus do most of the commentators interpret the above phrase which, literally, reads "the two easts" (al-mashriqayn). This interpretation is based on the idiomatic usage, not infrequent in classical Arabic, of referring to two opposites - or two conceptually connected entities - by giving them the designation of one of them in the dual form: e.g., "the two moons", denoting "sun and moon"; "the two Basrahs", i.e., Kufah and Basrah; and so forth.