(1–2) “In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. O mankind, fear your Lord. Indeed, the quake of the Hour will be a tremendous thing. On the Day you see it, every nursing mother will become heedless of the child she is nursing, every pregnant woman will deliver her burden, and you will see people as though intoxicated, though they will not be intoxicated; rather, Allah’s punishment will be severe.”
Allah addresses all mankind, commanding them to fear their Lord, who has nurtured them with blessings both manifest and hidden. It is therefore only right that they should fear Him by forsaking idolatry, wickedness, and disobedience, and by obeying His commands to the best of their ability.
He then mentions what will help them attain mindfulness of Him and warns them against abandoning it by informing them of the horrors of the Resurrection. He says:
“Indeed, the quake of the Hour will be a tremendous thing.” Its magnitude cannot be measured, nor can its true nature be fathomed. When the Hour comes, the earth will quake and convulse in its final convulsion, ⦗533⦘ the mountains will split apart and collapse, becoming heaps of shifting sand and then scattered dust, and mankind will be divided into three classes.
The sky will then split open, the sun and moon will be folded up, and the stars will be scattered. There will be such turmoil and distress that hearts will break, souls will recoil, children will turn gray, and even the hardest rocks will melt. Hence He says: “On the Day you see it, every nursing mother will become heedless of the child she is nursing,” even though she is naturally endowed with intense love for her child—especially at that stage, when the child cannot survive without her milk.
“And every pregnant woman will deliver her burden” because of the overwhelming terror and dread. “And you will see people as though intoxicated, though they will not be intoxicated.” That is, you who behold them will think that they are intoxicated with wine, though they are not.
“Rather, Allah’s punishment will be severe.” It will therefore rob them of reason, empty their hearts of all else, and fill them with terror. Their hearts will rise into their throats and their eyes will stare fixedly. On that Day, no father will avail his child, nor will any child avail his father in the least.
On that Day, “a man will flee from his brother, his mother and his father, his wife and his children. Every person among them that Day will have enough concern of his own.”
There, “the wrongdoer will bite his hands and say, ‘If only I had followed the Messenger’s path! Woe to me! If only I had not taken so-and-so as a close friend!’” Some faces will then be blackened and others brightened. The scales will be set up, upon which even an atom’s weight of good or evil will be weighed. The records of deeds will be spread open, containing every deed, statement, and intention, whether small or great. The Bridge will be erected over the back of Hell; the Garden will be brought near to the God-fearing; and Hellfire will be laid bare before those who went astray.
“When it sees them from a distant place, they will hear its raging and roaring. When they are thrown, bound together, into a narrow place within it, they will cry out there for destruction.” They will be told, “Do not cry out this Day for a single destruction, but cry out for many destructions!” When they call upon their Lord to bring them out of it, He will say, “Remain despised therein, and do not speak to Me.” The Most Merciful Lord will be wrathful with them, the agonizing punishment will overtake them, and they will despair of every good. They will find all their deeds before them, without so much as the tiniest speck or the membrane of a date stone missing.
Meanwhile, the God-fearing will rejoice in the meadows of the Gardens, delighting in every kind of pleasure and abiding forever amid all that their souls desire. It therefore behooves every rational person who knows that all of this lies ahead to prepare for it, not to let wishful hopes distract him until he abandons righteous action, and to make mindfulness of Allah the garment next to his skin, fear of Him his outer covering, and love and remembrance of Allah the very soul of his deeds.