Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Abi Tawbah informed us; Abu Tahir Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn al-Harith informed us; Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Kisa'i informed us; Abd Allah ibn Mahmud informed us; Ibrahim ibn Abd Allah al-Khallal informed us; Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak narrated to us from Sa'id ibn Abi Ayyub, who said: Yahya ibn Abi Sulayman narrated to us from Sa'id al-Maqburi, from Abu Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, recited this verse: “On that Day it will report its news.” He said, “Do you know what its news is?” They said, “Allah and His Messenger know best.” He said, “Its news is that it will testify against every male and female servant concerning what each did upon its surface. It will say: ‘On such-and-such a day, he did such-and-such upon me.’ These are its news.” (1)

“Because your Lord will inspire it. (5) On that Day, people will depart in separate groups, to be shown their deeds. (6) So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, (7) and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.” (8)

“Because your Lord will inspire it”: that is, He will command it to speak and permit it to report what was done upon it. Ibn Abbas and al-Qurazi said: He will inspire it.

The idiom of the verse is that Allah inspires it. In Arabic, the expressions awha laha, awha ilayha, wahha laha, and wahha ilayha are equivalent.

His saying, Exalted is He: “On that Day, people will depart”: people will return from the station of reckoning after being presented for judgment, “in separate groups”—scattered apart: some heading to the right, toward Paradise, and others heading to the left, toward the Fire. This is like His saying: “On that Day they will be separated” (al-Rum 30:14), and, “On that Day they will be divided” (al-Rum 30:43).

“To be shown their deeds”: Ibn Abbas said: to be shown the recompense for their deeds. The meaning is that they will return from the station in separate parties to take up their respective abodes in Paradise and the Fire.

“Whoever does an atom’s weight”: the weight of a tiny ant—the smallest kind of ant. “Of good will see it. And whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it”: Ibn Abbas said: There is no believer or disbeliever who does any good or evil in this world except that Allah will show it to him on the Day of Resurrection. (2) As for the believer, he will see his good deeds and his evil deeds, and Allah will forgive his evil deeds