(47–49) “And on the Day We set the mountains in motion, you will see the earth laid bare. We shall gather them together, leaving none of them behind. They will be presented before your Lord in rows: ‘You have indeed come to Us just as We created you the first time. Yet you claimed that We would never appoint a time for you.’ The record will be laid open, and you will see the sinners fearful of what it contains. They will say, ‘Woe to us! What is this record that leaves no deed, small or great, unaccounted for?’ They will find all that they did present before them, and your Lord wrongs no one.”
Allah Most High informs us of the condition of the Day of Resurrection and the disturbing horrors and alarming hardships it will contain. He says, “And on the Day We set the mountains in motion”; that is, He will remove them from their places, turn them into heaps, then make them like fluffed wool. They will then disintegrate and vanish, becoming scattered dust. The earth will be laid bare and become a level plain, with neither depression nor elevation. Allah will gather all creation upon that earth, leaving none of them behind. Rather, He will gather the first and the last from the depths of the wilderness and the bottoms of the seas. He will bring them together after they were dispersed and restore them as a new creation after they had been torn apart.
They will be presented before Him in rows so that He may review them, examine their deeds, and judge them with His just judgment, in which there is neither inequity nor injustice. He will say to them, “You have indeed come to Us individually, just as We created you the first time”; that is, without wealth, family, or clan. They will have nothing with them except the deeds they performed and what they earned of good and evil. As Allah Most High says, “You have indeed come to Us individually, just as We created you the first time, and you have left behind all that We bestowed upon you. Nor do We see with you those intercessors whom you claimed were partners in your affairs.”
Here, addressing those who denied the resurrection after they have now witnessed it with their own eyes, He says, “Yet you claimed that We would never appoint a time for you.” That is, you denied recompense for deeds and Allah’s promise and warning; but now you have seen and experienced it.
At that point, the records of deeds written by the noble angels (1) will be brought forth. Hearts will take flight in terror at them, anguish will intensify at their impact, and even solid rock would almost melt because of them. The sinners will fear them. When they see their deeds inscribed against them and their words and actions fully enumerated, they will say, “Woe to us! What is this record that leaves no deed, small or great, unaccounted for?” That is, it leaves no sin, whether small or great, without recording it. Everything has been preserved therein: no deed done secretly or openly, by night or by day, has been forgotten.
“They will find all that they did present before them,” unable to deny it, “and your Lord wrongs no one.” They will then be recompensed for those deeds, made to acknowledge them, and disgraced; and the punishment will become deservedly binding upon them. That is because of what their own hands sent forth, and because Allah is never unjust to His servants. Rather, His treatment of them never departs from His justice and grace.