He said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “Rejoice, O destitute Emigrants: you shall have complete light on the Day of Resurrection. You will enter Paradise before the wealthy people by half a day—and that is equivalent to five hundred years.” (1)

Ibn Zayd said: “Indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning”—these are days of the Hereafter. And His saying, “whose measure is fifty thousand years of your reckoning,” refers to the Day of Resurrection. According to this interpretation, they are hastening the punishment, whereas one day of their punishment in the Hereafter is a thousand years.

It was also said that it means: one day of the punishment they seek to hasten, in its heaviness, length, and severity, is like a thousand years of your reckoning. So how can you seek to hasten it? This is like the saying: “The days of distress are long, while the days of joy are short.”

It was also said that the meaning is that, in His granting respite, one day and a thousand years are alike to Him, for whenever He wills, He is able to seize them; nothing escapes Him because of delay. Thus, in terms of His power, the occurrence of the punishment they seek to hasten and its postponement are the same. This is the meaning of Ibn Abbas’s statement in the narration of Ata.

“And how many a town did I grant respite while it was committing wrongdoing; then I seized it, and to Me is the final return. (48) Say, O people, I am only a clear warner to you. (49) As for those who believe and do righteous deeds, theirs shall be forgiveness and a noble provision. (50) But those who strive against Our signs, seeking to thwart them—they are the people of the Blazing Fire. (51)”

“And how many a town did I grant respite”—that is, I gave it respite—“while it was committing wrongdoing; then I seized it, and to Me is the final return.” “Say, O people, I am only a clear warner to you.” “As for those who believe and do righteous deeds, theirs shall be forgiveness and a noble provision.” The noble provision is that which never ceases. It was also said that it is Paradise.

“But those who strive against Our signs”—that is, they labor to invalidate Our signs—“seeking to thwart them.” Ibn Kathir and Abu Amr recited this word here and in Surat Saba with a doubled consonant, meaning: hindering people from faith. The other reciters read it with a long vowel, meaning: defiant and opposing. Qatadah said: Its meaning is that they imagine and suppose that they can escape Us, based on their claim that there is no resurrection, no rising from the dead, no Paradise, and no Fire. To escape Us means to elude Us, so that We are unable to overcome them. This is like His saying: “Or do those who commit evil deeds think that they can outrun Us?” (The Spider 29:4). “They are the people of the Blazing Fire.” It was also said that “seeking to thwart” means contending with one another, each seeking to expose the other’s incapacity.