and his words as well. By drawing attention to the tallying and recording of speech, He implicitly points to the recording of deeds-deeds that occur less often than words yet carry far greater weight, for they are the ends and ultimate outcomes of speech.
He then spoke of the lesser Resurrection: the agony of death. It comes bearing the truth—namely, the encounter with Him, exalted is He; the arrival before Him; the presentation of the soul to Him; and the reward or punishment hastened for it even before the greater Resurrection.
Next He referred to the greater Resurrection in His words: “The Trumpet will be blown; that is the Day of Warning” (50:20).
He proceeded to describe the state of creatures on that Day: every person will come before Allah, glorious is He, accompanied by a driver who impels him and a witness who testifies against him. This witness is in addition to the testimony of his limbs, the testimony of the very earth on which he acted for or against himself, and the testimony of His Messenger and the believers. For Allah, exalted is He, will call to witness over His servants the guardian angels, the prophets, the places where they performed good or evil, and the skins with which they disobeyed Him. He does not judge between them on the basis of His knowledge alone—He is the most just of judges and the wisest of rulers. Hence His Prophet informed us that he will judge people by what he hears of their confessions and the testimony of clear evidence, not by mere personal knowledge (1). How, then, could it ever be permissible for a judge to issue a ruling solely on the basis of his own knowledge, without proof or admission?
He—glorified be He—further declared that man is heedless of this affair, though it is a matter of which he should never be heedless and which ought ever to occupy his thoughts. He said: “in heedlessness of this” (50:22), and He did not say “of it,” just as He said: “Yet they are, concerning it, in unsettling doubt” (41:45).