Welcome to our weekly program "Path towards Enlightenment" in which we present you a fluent and easy-to-understand explanation of the ayahs of the holy Qur’an. We start from where we left you last Friday and here is ayah 63 of Surah Ahzab:

 “The people question you concerning the Hour. Say, ‘Its knowledge is only with Allah.’ What do you know, maybe the Hour is near.”

The disbelievers and hypocrites whose retarded minds could not comprehend the raising of the dead in their original physical form after their bones had turned into dust, doubted the occurrence of resurrection. In a bid to ridicule God’s promise of the Day of Resurrection and to try to weaken belief in the mission of Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny), they raised the question that if he is right, then he should say when actually the resurrection will take place?

As is clear from the wordings of this ayah, God Almighty commands the Prophet to tell them that only He the Creator of the universe is aware of the exact time of the Day of Resurrection. It will surely come, and it is almost near. Like death, which is near and which no one knows when it will befall, Resurrection is also a certainty, even if it is imagined that it is far away.

The answer provided by the holy Qur’an is timeless, which means that it is relevant in every era and place, whenever and wherever doubts are raised by the weak of faith and disbelievers, regarding resurrection.

The important point is that the concept of the Day of Resurrection helps the believers to be careful of their words, deeds, and actions, which should be pleasing to God, since violation of God’s commandments would be detrimental on Resurrection Day, and the Final Judgement of reward and punishment.

From this ayah we learn that:

1. Not knowing the exact time of the resurrection does not mean uncertainty in its occurrence, since faith in the Day of Resurrection is among the fundamental beliefs of Islam.
2. We should always be prepared for the eventuality of death and return of our soul to our Lord. In other words, knowing the time of death is not important, but what is important is readiness for death.

Now we listen to and read ayahs 64 to 66 of Surah Ahzab:

“Indeed Allah has cursed the faithless and prepared for them a blaze,”

“In which they will remain forever. They will not find any guardian or helper.”

“The day when their faces are turned about in the Fire, they will say, ‘We wish we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the Apostle!”

In continuation of the previous ayah which relates to the doubts expressed by the hypocrites and the disbelievers about Resurrection, this ayah means to say that those who try to weaken religious beliefs and mar people’s relationship with the Prophet, will be deprived of Divine Mercy in the world and will be punished in afterlife, because they never cared to repent and reform. Allah’s wrath upon the disbelievers is certain. They will have neither a protector to protect them from being cast into Hell, nor a helper to save them from the eternal blaze.

From these ayahs we learn that:

1. Doubts, open disbelief and denial of truth, which stem from obstinacy and refusal to see realities, makes the unrepentant sinner deprive himself/herself of Divine Mercy in this world, and deserving of Divine Wrath in afterlife.
2. Unlike the social system in the life of the transient world, in afterlife, no one can help the other and save him/her from punishment.
3. The only way for real prosperity in life, and salvation in afterlife, is obedience of God and His Prophet. 

Now we listen to and read ayahs 67 and 68 of Surah Ahzab:

“And they (the disbelievers) will say, ‘Our Lord! We obeyed our leaders and elders, and they led us astray from the way.”

“Our Lord! Give them a double punishment and curse them with a mighty curse.”

On the Day of Resurrection, when the horror of Divine Wrath looms before their eyes, the sinners who had died unrepentant, will curse those who had misled them, saying they merely obeyed their leaders, although such talk on that day can in no way justify the sins and crimes they had committed while alive. God had given every person the intellect to distinguish good from evil, and the sinners, while alive, could have easily spurned those trying to mislead them in view of the ample respite they had been given in life by God. In other words, they could have followed the path of the Prophet and thus saved themselves from error. The point is that by nature they were not compelled to obey the misleaders and miscreants, and could have opposed them.   

Thus, when exposed to Divine Wrath on the Day of Resurrection, the sinners seek double punishment for those who misled them, but they themselves will not be able to escape the fate into which they had deliberately plunged. As in ayah 38 of Surah Araf, in response to those who ask for double chastisement for their leaders, God says: “…Every time that a nation enters [hell], it will curse its sister [nation]. When they all rejoin in it, the last of them will say about the first of them, ‘Our Lord, it was they who led us astray; so give them a double punishment of the Fire.’ He will say, ‘It is double for each [of you], but you do not know.’

From these ayahs we learn that:

1. On the Day of Resurrection, no unrepentant sinner can escape the punishment that he/she deserves, by placing the blame on the shoulders of others.
2. Blindly following leaders of crimes and sins, brings about definite doom and destruction.
3. Those who mislead people are responsible for their misdeeds and cannot escape their consequences, even after their death.

AS/ME