Chapter Four

Resurrection From The Graves

When the end of this world comes, everything shall be overturned.
Everything we now see on the earth will disappear and ends: the sun, the
mountains, the seas, the sky, the earth. Allah, all praise and glory is to Him,
appointed a time for the Day of Resurrection that none knows it but Him. But
out of mercifulness towards us He gave us the portents of the Hour through what
is reported to us by the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him
peace). Generally speaking, it is the disturbance of the moral balances in the
universe. They are the balances set by the Law of Allah, all praise and glory
is to Him, which should have governed people’s life to make the world a
righteous place.

Among the portents is to see abominable acts deemed lawful, and people
boasting of committing what incurs the Anger of Allah. Whereas righteous acts
are condemned among people. If you render
back the trusts, people accuse you of foolishness and ignorance. People earn
ill-gotten money and become experts in attaining it and are even proud of it.
Every person withholds what he has. The manufacturer does not attend properly
to his craft nor the farmer. People refuse to use the power and means that
Allah has bestowed upon them in helping the needy or the oppressed.

Among its portents
also is the loss of rights among people. Desires are followed. Hypocrites
assume the highest worldly positions but people marked by sound wisdom and
judgment are unheeded. Authority comes in the hands of unfit persons, which
means that jobs and high posts are not assigned on the basis of efficiency and
experience but on the basis of personal inclinations and whether being favored
or not by the people wielding authority. Competence then is of no value.

Achievements are
not ascribed to their doers. We find people claiming that they have done but
they have not. Man claims that he is the origin in the universe and that
everything is subject to his will and power, thus we find those who say: “The
era of religion has ended and the era of science has begun!”

 

The
Portents of the Last Hour  

Allah, all praise
and glory is to Him, gives us in the Noble Qur’an one of the signs of the
advent of the Last Hour in His Saying, all glory is to Him:

[Until when the earth is clad with its
adornments and is beautified, and its people think that they have all the
powers of disposal over it, Our Command reaches it by night or by day and We
make it like a clean-mown harvest, as if it had not flourished yesterday! Thus
do We explain the signs in detail for the people who reflect.] [Yûnus, 10: 24]

On contemplating
the meaning of this glorious Ayah we will find that before the Day of
Resurrection the earth will be fully adorned and beautified. On its surface
rise the high modern towers, big cities, and whatever may adorn the earth from
ornaments and make worldly life attractive to people, and shows it to them in
its most beautiful shapes. This will not happen except through the advance of
civilization in a way that makes man capable of realizing many things. He can
travel from one country to another in a short time. He can manage his household
and what is outside his home by remote control. He presses a button and food is
served and presses another and he moves easily from a place to another.

In other words,
life on the earth will reach the peak of technology, which realizes to man
luxury.

The Saying of
Allah, all praise and glory is to Him, [and its people think that they have all the powers of
disposal over it] [10: 24] is a proof that
people will forget Allah, The Exalted and Ever-Majestic, and His Power. They
will  forget that He is The One Who
created this universe and established it laws and everything in it. They will
ascribe this to themselves and think that they have the power to do whatever
they want in the land. That earth is submissive to their will and powers by the
science they have achieved. When the earth and whatever in it submits only to
the Will of Allah. Him Alone is the doer of what He wills.

When
the earth and the universe are destroyed

When people forget
Allah, all praise and glory is to Him, and are deceived by their power the
Command of Allah comes by night or day, because night and day always exist on
the earth. There is no night on the surface of the earth without day, and no
day without night but they exist together. So, when the Command of Allah comes
night and day will be there.

His Saying [and We make it like a clean-mown harvest,
as if it had not flourished yesterday] [10: 24] means that
everything on the earth from ornaments and embellishments will be destroyed.
All of a sudden the earth will be barren, nothing on it. Everything mankind has
done during the long centuries will vanish and end in seconds. But when will
this happen?

The Messenger of
Allah (may Allah bless and grant him peace) said: “If
you see that people have deadened the prayers, wasted the trusts, eaten Ribâ
(i.e. usury or usurious interests), deemed lying permissible, traded religion
for worldly life, then these are among the signs of the Hour.”                 

The Messenger of
Allah (may Allah bless and grant him peace) gives us further signs of the Last
Hour, as when people slight bloodshed, thus murder and assassination prevail.
And when the chief of people is the wickedest among them – though he should be
the oldest or the one most honored by virtue of adhering to noble manners.
Also, when people use unjust measures, which means that usurping people’s
rights prevail. And prevalence of superstitions – thus people believe in
fortune-telling and palmistry and other arts of charlatans.

      

When
the Trumpet is blown

    

There are major signs of the Last Hour but we shall not discuss them.
The question is: what shall happen when the Last Hour come? As we have already
said everything shall be destroyed and the Trumpet shall be blown as Almighty
Allah says what means:

[And the Horn will
be blown, and whoever is in the heavens and whoever is on the earth will fall
dead except whom Allah wills. Then it will be blown again, and at once they
will be standing, looking on] [Az-Zumar, 39: 68]

Thus, the first blowing of the Trumpet is before resurrection.
Whereupon, whoever is in the heavens and on the earth will fall dead, not
mankind alone, or mankind and jinn but all the creatures of Allah in the
heavens or on the earth. It shall include the angels and other creatures except
him whom Allah, all praise and glory is
to Him, wills that he shall remain.

Then follows the
second blowing. Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, says what means: [and at once they
will be standing, looking on] [39: 68] meaning
whoever Allah wills that he should return to life once again and all who would
witness the Day of Resurrection.

The
sight…before the hearing

Allah, all praise
and glory is to Him, says at the end of Ayah 68 [looking on]

[looking on] here has two meanings:

The first meaning: [looking on] is seeing one another. In
worldly life and in the life of Barzakh
there are things that we see and
others that we do not see. But at the moment of resurrection all the creatures
of Allah will see one another. We shall see Satan and his offspring. We shall
see the angels and those who lived before us from the time of the Prophet Adam
(may Allah bless him and grant him peace) up till now. And also see the extinct
species. We shall see all this.

The second meaning: Allah, all
praise and glory is to Him, in this glorious Ayah states the sight before the
hearing though in all the glorious Ayat of the Noble Qur’an the hearing is
stated before the sight, all with the exception of two Ayat.

Allah, Blessed and
Exalted is He, says what means:

[And Allah has brought you out from the
wombs of your mothers while you know nothing. And He gave you hearing, sight,
and hearts that you might give thanks (to Allah)] [An-Nahl, 16: 78]

And His Saying:

[It is He, Who has created for you (the
sense of) hearing (ears), sight (eyes), and hearts (understanding). Little
thanks you give] [Al-Mu‘minûn, 23: 78]

And His Saying:

[Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the
heart – about all those [one] will be questioned] [Al-Isrâ’, 17: 36]            

In all the
glorious Ayat of the Noble Qur’an in which the hearing and the sight are
stated, the hearing precedes the sight because the ear performs its function
from the moment of birth. Moreover, it does not sleep because it is the organ
of summoning.

   

Ear then is the
instrument of knowledge and learning. You hear much more than you see. And to
speak you have to first hear. Through the ear we receive knowledge, language,
speech and the like.

But only in two
glorious Ayat Allah, all praise and glory is to Him, states the sight before
the hearing in His Saying:

["Our Lord, we have seen and heard, so
return us [to the world]; we will work righteousness. Indeed, we are [now]
certain."] [As-­Sajdah, 32: 12]

[And at once they
will be standing, looking on] [Az-Zumar, 39: 68]

 

The reason is that
seeing will (in this situation) precede hearing. When we come out from the
graves on the Day of Resurrection we will first see then hear…see what? We
shall see the earth speedily cleaving asunder and people emerging from it. We
shall see throngs of people as if they were locusts spreading, from their
density.    

The Noble Qur’an
gives us more than a picture of the Day of Al-Hashir (cramming tightly
together), where Allah, The Most Exalted, says about it:

[On the Day the earth breaks away from them
[and they emerge] rapidly; that is a gathering easy for Us.] [Qâf, 50: 44]

[Their eyes humbled, they will emerge from
the graves as if they were locusts spreading,] [Al-Qamar, 54:7]

 

How
Al-Hashir will be like?

There are other
Ayat in the Noble Qur’an that describes the scenes of the Day of Resurrection.

Just imagine all
mankind, from the time of the Prophet Adam (may Allah bless him and grant him
peace) till the Day of Resurrection, coming out from inside the earth all at on
time. It will be straitened because they lived on it at different times,
generation after generation. But on this Day they will come all at one time.  That is why it is called the Day of
Al-Hashir (Crowding), because people will be crowded closely together.

Al-Hashir (Crowding) in Arabic means to force things into an
insufficient space, where everything becomes closely packed together, moving
with difficulty, hardly finding a place. This is how it will be like at the
hour of Crowding. Huge number of people and Jinn, besides other creatures of
Allah; all will be gathered closely together on the earth we once lived on.

Concerning this,
Almighty Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, says what means:

[Thereof (the earth) We created you, and
into it We shall return you, and from it We shall bring you out once again] [Tâ­-Hâ, 20: 55]

    

If you want to
imagine the picture, look at the swarms of locusts and how they come together
in huge numbers screening the sun’s disk, and none can count them. This is how
people will be like on the Day of Resurrection. They will emerge in large
numbers, as if they were infinite swarms of locusts.

But will every
person come out, free to go wherever he wants? Will we all come out to mingle
with one another in a big mass? No, the time of human free choice has ended and
we will no longer have choice in anything.

Everyone of us
will be entrusted to an angel who will take him from the land from which we
shall come out to the Land of Promise, where man shall be judged. None is left
on his own, but every person has a specified place wherefrom he shall come out,
and an angel charged with him. The angel is the one who shall drive him and man
will never be able to escape from the Decree of Allah.

Every
man with his deeds

Every man will
come out his deeds with him. But we will not come out the same way. There are
those who performed good deeds, they will come out lightly. They will not feel
the horror of resurrection nor the severity of the event, because Allah has
lightened it for them.

On the other hand,
there are those whose deeds are evil, Allah forbid. These people will come out
stumbling, on the strength of the Saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He,
which means:

[O mankind, fear your Lord. Indeed, the
convulsion of the [final] Hour is a terrible thing. On the Day you see it every
nursing mother will be distracted from that [child] she was nursing, and every
pregnant woman will abort her pregnancy, and you will see the people
[appearing] intoxicated while they are not intoxicated; but the punishment of
Allah is severe.] [Al-Hajj, 22: 1-2]       

Thus we shall see
people coming out of their graves. Swinging back and forth from the horror of
the situation, as if intoxicated. Because the punishment awaiting the sinners
among them is certainly severe; it violently shakes the strongest souls, most
capable of enduring hardships.

The
disbeliever and what shall he say?

As for the
disbeliever he will come out in a terrible state. At that moment everyone of
them will wish that he has never existed. He will wish that he turns into a
handful of dust that people step on rather than standing before Allah to be
judged.

Please read the
Saying of Allah, The Most Exalted, which means:

[And the disbeliever will say: "Woe to
me! Would that I were dust!"] [An-Naba’, 78: 40]

At the hour of
coming out every human will try to rescue himself. He will seek all means,
perhaps he can save himself from the horror of this situation and from the
punishment awaiting him.

The sinners, the
disobedient rebels, and those who have transgressed against themselves [by
sinning] will try to seek the help of the believers, while seeing them in a
shiny appearance. But the believers will run from them. Everyone in this
situation only cares for himself, everyone seeks the way of deliverance by
whatever means.

Please read the
Saying of Allah, The Most Exalted, which means:

[That Day shall a man flee from his
brother, and from his mother and his father, and from his wife and his
children. Everyman, that Day, will have enough to make him careless of others.] [‘Abasa, 80: 34-37]

On this day it is
useless to call for the help of another, even if he was the closest person to
oneself. Kinship is totally cancelled that Day and only deeds remain.
Therefore, if one of the evildoers or the disbelievers tries to call for the
help of his mother or father – who are of all people the closest to him – they
will escape from him because of the horror of the situation. The father runs
from his disobedient son, and the mother runs from her disobedient daughter.
And friends each running from the other because the horror on that Day shall be
mighty.

When
kinship disappears

Allah completely
removes from the hearts all feelings of kinship and relationship between the
righteous and the wicked people. Man finds himself only with his deeds; if they
are good, they will be for him glad tidings and light. And if his deeds are
evil, they will be for him distress, horror and misery.

Allah, Blessed and
Exalted is He, says what means:

[So when the Horn is blown, no relationship
will there be among them that Day, nor will they ask about one another.] [Al-Mu’minûn, 23: 101]

On that Day Allah,
all praise and glory is to Him, cancels kinship between the believers and
disbelievers. Feelings of kinship no longer exist but kinship and affinity is
by grace of faith alone. The believer becomes the brother of the believer,
between them is mutual love and mercy.

As for the sinners
who were joined by the worldly ties of kinship, relationship or close
friendship, who did not leave the company of one another, in this situation
they will become enemies. Each blaming the other for driving him to torment and
punishment.   

Concerning this,
Allah, The Most Exalted, says what means:

[Close friends, that Day, will be enemies
to each other, except for the righteous] [Az-Zukhruf, 43: 67]

 

People’s
state shall differ

But will people’s
state be the same? No, they will be degrees according to their deeds. This Hour
shall pass on the servants brought near to Allah most easily. Their face
will be laughing, rejoicing at the good news of Paradise. The companions of
the right as well, each according to his degree. But they will be all
rejoicing at good news. You can see purity, light and serenity all over their
faces.

By His Mercy
Allah, all praise and glory is to Him, lightens for them everything. They do
not feel the great horror. But tranquility fills their hearts and light
surrounds them. The Mercy of Allah relieves them from the severity of the
situation.

The people of the
Fire are also degrees. The face of everyone among them will be covered with
distress and sorrow. They will stand filled with misery and great horror. They
will carry their deeds and sins over their backs. You will look at their faces
and find them as if black from distress and sorrow. No trace of joy or light on
them. But great sorrow encircles them. They will look around them searching for
a way out. But where is the way out? Where is the escape?

The angel charged
with everyone of them stands and does leave him for an instant. Their deeds are
heavy, which make their movement difficult and painful. It is almost
impossible. Some from the heaviness of the burdens they carry will not be able
to move, but will crawl on their bellies from the heaviness of the sins they
carry on their backs.

To know what shall
appear over the faces of the righteous people and those of the guilty sinners,
read the Saying of Allah, The Most Exalted, which means:

[[Some] faces, that Day, will be bright –
Laughing, rejoicing at good news. And [other] faces, that Day, will have upon
them dust. Blackness will cover them. Those are the disbelievers, the wicked
ones.] 
[‘Abasa, 80: 38-42]

Just by looking at
the face you will know the destiny of the person. The laughing and rejoicing
faces are those of the people of Paradise. As for the other faces, it is enough
that their owners know that their destination is Hell, thus one can perceive
the impression on their faces.

An
angel charged with every soul 

            

Every one has an
angel responsible for him, according to the Saying of Allah, The Most Exalted,
which means:

[And every soul will come, with it a driver
and a witness.] [Qâf, 50: 21]

The driver is the
one who drives the sheep. He moves behind it and not before it. So that when
they lose the way he drives them back to the way they must follow.

Thus, will be the
angel charged with the soul, walking behind it, and the soul before it and the
angel never leaves it. The angel is the one who will direct it to its special
place on the Land of Promise. As for the witness, it is the deeds that will
testify for or against the soul. It is the full tape of its life history, not
an incident missing.

This gathering
shall stand waiting Allah’s Command of moving from the Land of Hashir
(Crowding) to that of Promise, where Judgment is executed. The sun will draw
near to the heads of the creatures. All people will feel the horror they now
see and they seek an intercessor who will intercede with Allah, all praise and
glory is to Him, for them. They will find none except Muhammad (may Allah bless
him and grant him peace).

Thus, before
resurrection the Trumpet shall be blown and whoever is in the heavens and on the
earth will fall dead. Then, it shall be blown for the second time and the earth
will break away from the creatures buried within it with great speed. Every
human will come out with his deeds. The righteous are filled with joy and
happiness. Whereas, the faces of the people of the Fire are dark, over them is
the Anger of Allah, looking for an intercessor but finding none.

On that Day every
person will care for no one except himself. Those who were joined together by
obedience in worldly life would be friends of one another. Whereas, those who
were joined by sin would be enemies of one another. Every soul has an angel
charged with it to lead it to the Land of Promise, where Judgment shall be
executed.  

Allah, all praise
and glory is to Him, describes that situation and the mighty horror in it by
saying what means:

[Then how can you fear, if you disbelieve,
a Day that will make the children white-haired?] [Al-Muzzammil, 73: 17]

  

Afterwards, we
come to the intercession of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and
grant him peace) and the awesome standing before Allah, all praise and glory is
to Him, and how Judgment shall take place?