The fourth opinion:
It holds that what is meant is the length of time during which judgment is pronounced among the servants on the Day of Resurrection.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim said:
“Aḥmad ibn Sinān al-Wāsiṭī narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī narrated to us; from Isrāʾīl; from Simāk; from ʿIkrimah; from Ibn ʿAbbās concerning the verse, ‘in a Day whose span is fifty thousand years.’ He said: ‘It is the Day of Resurrection.’ The chain is sound. Al-Thawrī also transmitted it from Simāk, from ʿIkrimah as his own statement, and the same view was held by al-Ḍaḥḥāk, al-Ḥasan, and Ibn Zayd.

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā said:
“Muḥammad ibn Idrīs narrated to us; al-Ḥasan ibn Wāqiʿ narrated to us; Ḍamrah narrated to us; from Ibn Shawdhub; from Yazīd al-Rishk, who said: ‘People will stand on the Day of Resurrection for forty thousand years, and judgment will be concluded among them in the space of ten thousand years.’”

ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥah reported from Ibn ʿAbbās that Allah has made the Day of Resurrection, for the unbelievers, equal to fifty thousand years.

Al-Kalbī, in his Tafsīr, transmitting it from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, said: “If anyone other than Allah—exalted be He—were to undertake the reckoning of the servants, he would not finish even in fifty thousand years.”

Al-Bayhaqī said: Among what Ḥammād ibn Zayd related from Ayyūb is that al-Ḥasan said: “What do you think of a Day on which the servants will stand on their feet for fifty thousand years, without eating a single bite or drinking a single sip, until their throats split from thirst and their insides burn from hunger; then they are driven to the Fire and given to drink from a scalding spring whose heat has reached its extreme (1) and whose boiling is intense?” This has been reported in several ḥadiths, and Allah knows best.

Imam Aḥmad said:
“Al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā narrated to us; Ibn Luhayʿah narrated to us; Darrāj narrated to us; from Abū al-Haytham; from Abū Saʿīd. It was said to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: ‘In a Day whose measure is fifty thousand years’—how long that Day is! The Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied: ‘By Him in whose hand is my soul, it will be lightened for the believer until it is easier for him than an obligatory prayer he performs in the world.’”

Ibn Jarīr likewise recorded it in his Tafsīr from Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā; from Ibn Wahb; from ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith; from Darrāj—with this wording. Darrāj Abū al-Samḥ and his teacher Abū al-Haytham Sulaymān ibn ʿAmr al-ʿAtwārī are both weak narrators.

Nevertheless, al-Bayhaqī narrated it with another wording, saying: “Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan the judge and Abū Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿAmr both informed us, saying: Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣaghānī narrated to us; Abū Salamah al-Khuzaʿī narrated to us; Khallād ibn Sulaymān al-Ḥaḍramī—who was a man of great fear (of Allah)—narrated to us; he said: ‘I heard Darrāj Abū al-Samḥ relate, from someone who told him, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, that he came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ,’