“Everyone will have degrees according to what they have done, and your Lord is not unaware of what they do. Your Lord is the Self-Sufficient, the Possessor of mercy. If He wills, He can do away with you and appoint as your successors whomever He wills, just as He brought you into being from the descendants of another people. What you are promised is surely coming, and you cannot escape. Say, ‘O my people, carry on in your way; I too am carrying on. You will soon know who will have the final abode. The wrongdoers will certainly not prosper.’”
“Everyone” among them “will have degrees according to what they have done”—each according to his deeds. He will not treat one whose evil was slight like one whose evil was great, nor a follower like the one followed, nor a subordinate like a leader. Likewise, although those rewarded with Paradise all share in gain, success, and entry into Paradise, there are differences among them that only Allah knows. Yet all of them are pleased with what their Master has given them and content with what He has graciously bestowed upon them.
We therefore ask Him, exalted is He, to make us among the people of the highest Firdaws, which Allah has prepared for those nearest to Him among His servants, those chosen from His creation, and the elect among those He loves.
“Your Lord is not unaware of what they do.” He will recompense each according to His knowledge and what He knows of that person’s intention. Allah commanded His servants to perform righteous deeds and forbade them from evil deeds out of mercy toward them and concern for their welfare. He Himself has no need of any of this, for He is self-sufficient in Himself and independent of all His creatures. The obedience of those who obey does not benefit Him, just as the disobedience of sinners does not harm Him.
“If He wills, He can do away with you” by destroying you “and appoint as your successors whomever He wills, just as He brought you into being from the descendants of another people.” Since you know that you must leave this abode as others did, departing from it and leaving it to those who come after you just as those before you departed and left it to you, why have you treated it as a permanent home? Why have you settled in it and forgotten that it is merely a place of passage, not a place of lasting residence, and that ahead of you lies an abode containing every delight and free from every affliction and deficiency?
It is the abode toward which the first and the last strive, and toward which those who have gone before and those who come after journey. When they reach it, there they will find eternal life, unending residence, the ultimate end beyond which there is no further end, the goal in which every quest culminates, and the object of desire beside which every other desire fades away. There, by Allah, lies all that souls desire, eyes delight in, and competitors vie for: the delight of souls, abundant joys, the bliss of bodies and hearts, and nearness to the One who knows every unseen thing. How noble is an aspiration fixed upon such honors and a resolve that soars to the highest degrees! How paltry is the share of one content with what is inferior, and how low the ambition of one who chooses a losing bargain!
A heedless person who turns away should not think it unlikely that he will swiftly reach this abode, for “what you are promised is surely coming, and you cannot escape”—you cannot elude Allah by fleeing from His punishment. Your forelocks are in His grasp, and you remain subject to His governance and control.