⦗60–62⦘ “He is the One who takes your souls by night and knows what you earn by day. Then He awakens you by day, so that an appointed term may be fulfilled. Then to Him is your return, and He will inform you of what you used to do. He is the Supreme over His servants and sends guardians over you, until, when death comes to one of you, Our messengers take his soul, and they never fail in their duty. Then they are returned to Allah, their true Master. Surely judgment belongs to Him alone, and He is the swiftest of reckoners.”
All of this establishes His exclusive right to worship, constitutes an argument against those who associate partners with Him, and demonstrates that He alone deserves love, reverence, veneration, and honor. He informs us that He alone governs His servants’ affairs, both while they are awake and while they sleep. He takes their souls by night—the taking of sleep—so their movements cease and their bodies rest. He then awakens them from their sleep so that they may pursue what benefits them in their religious and worldly affairs. Exalted is He, and He knows what they have wrought and earned through all those activities.
He continues to direct their affairs in this manner until their appointed lifespans run their full course. Through this governance, an appointed term is fulfilled: the term of this life. There is also another term thereafter, namely resurrection after death. Hence He says: “Then to Him is your return”—to none other—“and He will inform you of what you used to do,” whether good or evil.
Exalted is He: “He is the Supreme over His servants.” His all-encompassing will and universal volition take effect among them. They possess no control whatsoever and neither move nor remain still except by His permission. Even so, He has appointed guardian angels over His servants, who watch over each servant and preserve a record of all his deeds. As the Exalted says: “Indeed, over you are guardians, noble scribes, who know whatever you do.” “One sits on the right and another on the left. Not a word does a person utter without having a vigilant observer ready.” This is His protection of them during their lifetime.
“Until, when death comes to one of you, Our messengers take his soul”—meaning the angels charged with taking souls—“and they never fail in their duty” in that regard. They neither add an hour to what Allah has ordained and decreed nor subtract one, and they carry it out solely in accordance with the divine directives and the decrees of the Lord.
“Then,” after death and the intermediate life, with all the good and evil it contains, “they are returned to Allah, their true Master”—that is, the One who exercised authority over them through His decree governing creation and carried out among them whatever forms of governance He willed. He then governed them through His commands and prohibitions, sent messengers to them, and revealed Books to them. Thereafter, they are returned to Him so that He may judge them with recompense, reward them for the good deeds they performed, and punish them for evil and sin.
Hence He says: “Surely judgment belongs to Him alone,” without any partner, “and He is the swiftest of reckoners,” because His knowledge is perfect and He has preserved their deeds by recording them in the Preserved Tablet and then having His angels record them in the register in their hands.
Since He alone creates and governs, is Supreme over His servants, and cares for them completely in every state—and since His alone are the decree governing creation, the judgment of revealed law, and the judgment of recompense—how can those who associate partners with Him turn away from One who possesses such attributes and qualities to worship beings that have no authority whatsoever, possess not even an atom’s weight of benefit, and have neither power nor will?
By Allah, were they truly aware of Allah’s forbearance toward them, His pardon and mercy for them—even as they openly defy Him by associating partners with Him and showing ingratitude, and affront His greatness with falsehood and calumny, while He grants them well-being ⦗260⦘ and sustains them—their every impulse would be drawn toward knowing Him, their minds would become lost in love for Him, and they would loathe themselves with the utmost loathing for having yielded to Satan’s call, which inevitably brings disgrace and ruin. But they are a people who do not reason.