their graves, neither lineage nor kinship will profit them, “nor will they question one another.” No one will ask after another; rather, Allah the Exalted says, “On the Day when a man will flee from his brother, and from his mother and his father, and from his wife and his children; every man among them that Day will have a matter to preoccupy him” (80:34–37). Thus, in that hour bloodlines will be of no use, and relatives will not enquire about one another—whereas in this world people continually ask, “What happened to so-and-so? How is so-and-so doing?” In the Hereafter, however, “every man among them that Day will have a matter to preoccupy him” (80:37).

Allah, exalted is He, also says: “When the trumpet is blown, there will no longer be any kinship between them that Day, nor will they ask of one another. Then those whose scales are heavy—it is they who are the successful” (23:101–102). On that Day humankind will be divided into two groups: those whose scales are heavy—such people are successful, attaining what they love and escaping what they dread—

The word “scales” (mawāzīn) is the plural of mīzān. It appears in the Qur’an and the Sunnah both in the plural and the singular. Allah says here, “Those whose scales (mawāzīn) are heavy” (23:102), while the Prophet ﷺ said: “Two phrases are beloved to the Most Merciful, light upon the tongue yet heavy on the scale (mīzān): ‘Subḥāna-Allāh wa bi-ḥamdih, Subḥāna-Allāh al-ʿAẓīm.’” The plural is used because of the abundance of things to be weighed; the singular is used because the scale itself is one and admits of neither injustice nor deficiency.