“And they carefully maintain their prayers.” That is, they perform them consistently and safeguard their pillars, limits, conditions, proper manners, and complementary elements. May Allah make us among them. ⦗265⦘
(93, 94) “Who does greater wrong than one who fabricates a lie against Allah, or says, ‘A revelation has come to me,’ though nothing has been revealed to him, or one who says, ‘I will reveal the like of what Allah has revealed’? If only you could see the wrongdoers in the throes of death, while the angels stretch out their hands, saying, ‘Yield up your souls! Today you will be repaid with a humiliating punishment because you spoke falsely about Allah and arrogantly rejected His signs.’ You have now come to Us all alone, just as We created you the first time, leaving behind everything We bestowed upon you. We do not see with you your intercessors whom you claimed had a share in you. All bonds between you have been severed, and what you used to claim has deserted you.”
Allah says that no one commits a greater wrong or a graver crime than one who lies about Allah by attributing to Him a statement or ruling of which He is entirely innocent. Such a person is among the most unjust of creation because this entails lying, corrupting religions in both their fundamentals and their branches, and attributing that to Allah—all of which are among the gravest evils.
This includes claiming prophethood and asserting that Allah sends revelation to him when he is lying. In addition to lying about Allah and audaciously affronting His greatness and authority, he obliges people to follow him, fights them over it, and regards the lives and property of those who oppose him as lawful.
This verse includes everyone who has claimed prophethood, such as Musaylima the Liar, al-Aswad al-Ansī, al-Mukhtār, and others characterized by the same description.
“And one who says, ‘I will reveal the like of what Allah has revealed.’” That is, who is more unjust than one who claims that he can do what Allah does, rival Allah in His rulings, and institute laws just as Allah has instituted them? This also includes everyone who claims that he can challenge the Quran and is capable of producing its like. What wrong could be greater than for one who is inherently needy and powerless, and deficient in every respect, to claim partnership with the All-Powerful, Self-Sufficient One, who possesses absolute perfection in every respect—in His essence, names, and attributes?
After condemning the wrongdoers, Allah mentions the punishment He has prepared for them during the throes of death and on the Day of Resurrection. He says: “If only you could see the wrongdoers in the throes of death”—that is, amid its hardships, dreadful terrors, and hideous anguish—you would behold a horrifying sight and a condition no one could adequately describe.
“While the angels stretch out their hands” toward those dying wrongdoers to strike and punish them. As their souls struggle, become agitated, and resist leaving their bodies, the angels say to them: “Yield up your souls! Today you will be repaid with a humiliating punishment”—that is, a severe punishment that will humiliate and debase you. The recompense corresponds to the deed, for this punishment is “because you spoke falsely about Allah,” lying about Him and rejecting the truth brought by the messengers, “and arrogantly rejected His signs”; that is, you considered yourselves too exalted to submit to them and surrender to their rulings.
This proves the punishment and bliss of the Intermediate Realm, for this address and the punishment directed at them occur during the throes of death, shortly before death, and afterward.
It also proves that the soul is a corporeal entity: it enters and exits, can be addressed, inhabits the body, and departs from it. This is their condition in the Intermediate Realm.
As for the Day of Resurrection, when they arrive there, they will arrive bankrupt and alone, without family, wealth, children, soldiers, or supporters—just as Allah created them the first time, stripped of everything.
Possessions are acquired and obtained only afterward, through the means by which they are acquired. On that Day, everything that accompanied a servant in this world will be cut off except his righteous and evil deeds. Those deeds are the substance from which the abode of the Hereafter takes shape; its beauty and ugliness, its joys and sorrows, and its punishment and bliss will all be according to one’s deeds. Deeds alone will benefit or harm, grieve or delight. Everything else—family, children, wealth, and supporters—consists merely of external loans, transient attributes, and passing circumstances. Allah therefore says:
“You have now come to Us all alone, just as We created you the first time, leaving behind everything We bestowed upon you”—that is, everything We gave you and blessed you with—“behind your backs.” None of it can avail you in any way. “We do not see with you your intercessors whom you claimed had a share in you.”
The polytheists associate partners with Allah and worship angels, prophets, righteous people, and others alongside Him. They all belong to Allah, yet the polytheists give these created beings a claim over them and a share of their worship. This is merely their claim and an act of wrongdoing, for all are servants of Allah, Allah is their Owner, and He alone deserves their worship. Their associating others with Allah in worship and directing some of it to certain servants amounts to elevating those servants to the rank of the Creator and Owner. They will therefore be rebuked on the Day of Resurrection and addressed with these words:
“We do not see with you your intercessors whom you claimed had a share in you. All bonds between you have been severed.” That is, all connections and means between you and your alleged partners—including intercession and everything else—have been severed. They have brought no benefit and availed you nothing. “And what you used to claim has deserted you”: the gain, security, happiness, and salvation that Satan made attractive to you and fair-seeming in your hearts, which your tongues then proclaimed. You were deceived by this false claim, which had no reality. Then the opposite of what you had claimed became clear to you, and it became evident that you had lost yourselves, your families, and your wealth.