The import of the noble verse is that anyone whose faith is not already in place when the sun rises from the west will gain nothing by professing faith anew, nor by performing any righteous deed. He will have forfeited faith, the foundation upon which every other work rests, so the belief he adopts at that moment, as well as whatever good he may previously have done—maintaining kinship bonds, freeing slaves, extending hospitality, and other virtues of character—will avail him nothing, for they were built on no foundation. Allah says, “Those who disbelieve in their Lord—their deeds are like ashes scattered by a furious wind” 1. Any faith professed at that hour will not be accepted.

Al-Bukhārī and Muslim, among others, have narrated from Abū Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The Hour will not be established until the sun rises from the west. When it rises and the people see it, they will all believe, yet that will be the very moment when belief will no longer benefit any soul.”

Imām Ibn Kathīr—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “In the ḥadīth transmitted by Imām Aḥmad and al-Tirmidhī and declared authentic by al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Mājah, through the chain of ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Nujūd, from Zir ibn Ḥubaysh, from Ṣafwān ibn ʿAssāl, I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: ‘Allah has opened a gate toward the west whose width is seventy— or, he said, forty—years; it is the gate of repentance, and it will not be closed until the sun rises from the west.’”

These mass-transmitted ḥadiths, together with the noble verse, prove that any faith or repentance initiated after the sun has risen from the west will not be accepted. This is so—Allah knows best—because that event is one of the portents of the Hour, clearly signalling its nearness; the time is therefore treated as though it were already the Day of Resurrection. Allah, Exalted is He, says, “Are they waiting for anything but that the angels should come to them, or that your Lord should come, or that some of your Lord’s signs should come? On the Day that some of your Lord’s signs do come, no soul will profit from its faith” 2. He also says, “Then, when they beheld Our might, they cried, ‘We believe in Allah alone and disavow what we used to associate with Him.’ But their faith, once they had seen Our might, could not benefit them …”