Surah Ar-Rahman: No Escape from Divine Judgment

Last time, in this Surah Ar-Rahman series... Human beings actually need recognition from each other. It doesn't matter how you pretend you don't, you do. You need your dad to be able to... You want to hear your dad say, I love you.

Or I'm proud of you, son. You need it. You need your teacher to be able to say, good job on the homework. Your boss to be able to say, that was a great job on the project. Thank you. Or you want to hear a thank you.

You want to hear, you know, you exist. I see you. You know.

What happens to people, they're in a stadium, they're going... And the athlete just goes... Like that. And he just pointed randomly at the Pepsi vending machine. But the guy in the stands, he's like... You know, he just got recognized.

His life has changed. You know, he pointed at me, you know. There's a human need for recognition.

And Allah separates himself from that. And he says, actually, I don't have that, you do. I don't have the need for recognition.

That's one of the things that makes you mortal. That's one of the things that makes you khalq. The khaliq doesn't have it, you have it.

And it's actually Allah's rahma that he allowed himself to be recognized. He allowed himself to be recognized. To help you follow along and reflect more deeply, we've created a companion workbook for this series.

Download it at bayyinah.com forward slash rahman.

We shall free ourselves up for you, all of you. Both you two heavy loads.

Understanding "Freeing Ourselves Up"

Let's dig into this ayah. First, understand the word, freeing ourselves up. الفراغ للشيء الخلو عما يشغل عنه - faragh means to be empty of other things or to relieve yourself of other things that were preoccupying you.

وهو تمثيل الاحتناء بالشيء And it's used as an analogy when you become focused on one thing. قول أبي بكر الصديق لابنه عبد الرحمن افرغ الى اضيافك Abu Bakr al-Siddiq gave advice to his son using a phrase, free yourself for your guests. In other words, he was giving him advice that when your guests come over, make them feel like they have your full attention.

So افرغ الى اضيافك. الله سبحانه وتعالى لا يشغله شأن عن شأن فجعل انتهاء الشهون المشار اليها بقوله تعالى كل يوم هو في شأن يوم القيامة الى واحد هو جزاء المكلفين And then finally, I'll read this and translate both. الله تعالى ليس له شغل يفرغ منه انما المعنى سنقصد لمجازاتكم ومحاسبتكم

Scholars got a little bit troubled by the phrase, we'll free ourselves up for you because it sounds like I'm busy with something, I'm going to stop doing that and I'll free myself up. And that sounds inappropriate for Allah to free himself up for something as if something else was preoccupying him.

Because when you're preoccupied with something, it means you're unable to do other things until you free yourself up. How can that, that seems like a limitation. How can you attribute a limitation to Allah?

The Literary Nature of the Quran

This is where we learn the difference. There's a very important feature of the Quran. The Quran uses humor. The Quran uses sarcasm. The Quran expresses emotion. And we cannot look at the Quran all the time literally. We can't.

Allah, for example, will say hearts became hard like rocks, right? You cannot look at that literally. Allah says the sun was sinking into muddy water. The sun was not sinking into muddy water. That's how it looked. Like the, you know, I love watching the sun drown into the Pacific coast, right? The west coast. The sun is not drowning into the coast. That's how it looks. This is the language of literature, not the language of science.

So the same way, this is the language, this is literary and emotional language. Allah is saying he'll free himself up to give us a pretty scary hint. Right now he described everyone is in need of him. And by extension, what he didn't say, which is understood, is everything is in need of him.

The sun and the moon are following a precise measurement because Allah is putting it that way. The stars and the tree are doing sajdah because Allah is making them do that and keeping them in place. Now imagine Allah is essentially telling the human being, threatening the human being and saying, human being and saying, all these, this universe that you think is preoccupying me, how about I stop maintaining it? How about I allow it to fall apart so you feel like you have all my attention.

Isn't that what judgment day is? Allah is going to allow the maintenance of the universe to fall apart, let it collapse, let it do what it's meant to do all along because actually its essence is destruction and the only thing holding it in place is Allah. So when he decides to not hold it in place anymore, maybe then you'll realize, oh wow, Allah is letting that go so now I'm the sole focus of his attention. So this is actually sarcastic language.

It's not speaking about Allah's focus, it's speaking about how we think about Allah in incorrect ways, human beings and jinns and it's responding to that.

The Two Heavy Populations

Then the word, الثقلان. كل عظيم القدر مما يتنافس فيه ثقلا Any large quantity, any large volume of things is called a thaqal. Like for example, إني تاركن فيكم الثقلين كتاب الله وعترتي The Prophet ﷺ is leaving two heavy things, the book of Allah and his legacy behind, right? So the word thaqal is used in that way.

But let's actually understand the word thaqal in some other ways. You know, human beings and jinns start thinking that they are such a massive population that I want you to visualize this. You know, when police try to arrest a rioting crowd of like a thousand people, five thousand people, ten thousand people, how many people can they arrest? A few hundred, a few dozen.

What happens to most people? They run away because they run scattered in every direction. There's too big of a crowd for you to be able to catch all of them. Like, you know, if the kids were misbehaving in the playground and the principal walked in, all the kids dispersed. The only one that gets caught is the one he could reach and grab on to, right? So you'll see these scenes all the time. The police come and they beat down somebody while everybody else is running. So they just catch whoever they can catch, right?

So the idea that we're such a large population that chances are enough of us will escape. Not all of us are gonna get caught because of just the sheer volume of humanity. And Allah says, yeah, you think you're such a heavy population? Let's see. Let's see how well you escape when I free myself up for you.

So this is سَنَفْرُغُ لَكُمْ أَيُّهَا الثَّقَلَانِ

The other meaning of thaqal, which is heaviness, perhaps is a reference to the burden of sins and disobedience and rebellion that each human being has been carrying on themselves, right? And as a result of it, they have actually burdened the earth. The earth feels like it's overburdened with the sins of this creation, the human being inspired by the shayateen, right?

And so when Allah says, وَأَخْرَجَتِ الْأَرْضُ أَثْقَالَهَا That the earth will spit out its burdens. And part of those burdens is it's carrying these sinful souls that it rejects because the earth was designed to be in obedience to Allah and it allowed for these disobedient souls to live on it. It spits them out on judgment day. It regurgitates them. It doesn't wanna keep them inside.

Allah allowed the earth to relieve itself of this mutation, this impurity that's inside it, these dirty souls, right? So, أَثْقَالَهَا could actually be referring to the sinful burdened souls of both jinns and human beings. These people, these populations that have a lot to pay for because they've burdened themselves.

It's also interesting this imagery of weight and lightness. Like Allah says in Surah An-Nisa, He says, يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ لِيُخَفِّفَ عَنكُمْ Allah wants to lighten your burden. Which means Allah is giving you rules that make life easier. But also means that on judgment day, you won't have a heavy burden to carry if you obey Allah, right?

But now with this word, I think we should understand that these words are not for all of humanity and all of jinn. These words are now for those that are to be threatened on judgment day. Those are the ones being talked to.

A Shift in Pronouns

Another really important subtlety inside this ayah is you will notice, سَنَفْرُغُ لَكُمْ أَيُّهَا الثَّقَلَانِ. And, فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمْ is not used. What's used? رَبِّكُمَا

So you would expect here, سَنَفْرُغُ لَكُمَا أَيُّهَا الثَّقَلَانِ We will free ourselves up for both of you, you two heavy populations. However, he says, we will free ourselves for all of you. Kum is all of you. It's not the pair, it's the plural. So why switch from the pair to the plural?

Because on judgment day, right now, jinns and humans are two separate groups. But when judgment day starts, those same shayateen that were coming and whispering to me, and if I listen to them, they became my partners in crime. Judgment day happens, and that same jinn that was messing with me my whole life, that same shaytan, he's gonna be like, yeah, me too. Hey, who are you? I'm Qareen. I've been with you a long time, bro.

Let's just... Listen, I don't want anything to do with you right now. I know I've been giving you waswas my whole life, but I'm just gonna try to run. So they're trying to get away from each other.

But they're gonna be raised together. These people, these devils are invisible to us now. They won't be on judgment day. And so we are now together. And the kum captures together. سَنَفْرُغُ لَكُمْ Even though you're two heavy populations of humans and jinns, now you're bound together.

Because you work with each other. You did this together. So this is talking about people who listen to the shayateen, who did evil things. وَيُوحِي بَعْضُهُمْ إِلَىٰ بَعْضٍ They're the ones that inspired each other. This is the population that's being talked about.

فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمْ تُكَذِّبَانِ Now this ayah, what other wonders of your master are you still going to be in denial of? Are you still going to dismiss? It's actually taking on a new flavor.

You see in the previous ayat, you know, just ponder your creation. Just ponder what Allah has made in this world. Just ponder that your death is coming. Now realize that Allah will free himself up and you think you're just walking around denying him. A time is coming where you're not going to have that freedom. He's going to put his full attention on you.

The Judgment Day Challenge

And when that happens, there's an announcement being made. This surah is the opening scene of Judgment Day. There are other places in the Quran where there are episode 2, episode 3, episode 4 of Judgment Day. Other phases. Because Judgment Day is a long day. But this surah is the opening chapter.

Like what happens in the very, very beginning, right? And there are other surahs that have this opening scene, different aspects of that opening scene. This is one of them. So an announcement is heard.

Gathering of jinns and human beings. If you see yourselves capable of piercing through the peripheries of the skies and the earth, then go ahead and do so. You aren't piercing through anything without mighty authorization.

This is my own translation of the ayah. But let's dig into some things here. Who was addressed here first? Human beings or jinn? Which is unusual because the primary addressee of this surah so far has only been human beings. So the context has switched just a little bit. Why?

Two Challenges in the Quran

Well, this is one of the two ayahs in the Quran that are about a challenge where jinns and human beings are challenged. One of those challenges happens in this world and the other is happening in the opening scene of Judgment Day here. So one of them is in surah al-Isra, surah number 17 and the other one is here. So let's talk about that one for a second.

Allah says, قُلْ لَإِنْ اجْتَمَعَتِ الْإِنسُ وَالْجِنُّ عَلَىٰ أَن يَأْتُوا بِمِثْلِ هَذَا الْقُرْآنِ لَا يَأْتُونَ بِمِثْلِهِ وَلَوْ كَانَ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ ظَهِيرًا Tell them if human beings and jinns were gathered to produce the likes or the equivalent of this Quran, they will not be producing anything equivalent to it even if they were to back up one another.

Allah already told us jinns back up human beings for all kinds of projects. Here's a project you can back up each other all you want. You're not getting anywhere close. What is that project? The production of something like the Quran.

If you're paying attention, there Allah mentioned human beings first. قُلْ لَإِنْ اجْتَمَعَتِ الْإِنسُ وَالْجِنُّ Here, this is the second challenge. Judgment day comes, hey, if you think you can escape, go ahead. That's the second challenge.

The first challenge was make something like the Quran. That was in this life. The second challenge is go ahead and escape on judgment day if you can. That's the announcement. In this announcement, the jinn are mentioned first.

What's remarkable is producing something like the Quran, the Quran is bayan, isn't it? Who was taught bayan? Jinns or human beings? We learned that in this surah, didn't we? عَلَّمَهُ الْبَيَانَ So who's more capable of that challenge of producing? If there was someone ready to accept that challenge of producing the likes of the Quran, it would be the one who has bayan. And who's that? Human beings. So human beings were mentioned there first.

Between the ability to escape, if you compare the ability to escape between jinns and human beings, who's more capable of escape? Jinns are way more capable of escape than we are. So jinns are mentioned first here.

There's a remarkable precision in the Quran down to the word level, right? And what's really also interesting here is Allah mentions, if you can pierce through the peripheries of the skies and the earth. Skies are mentioned first, earth is mentioned second. Jinns are mentioned first, humans are mentioned second.

Because jinns are much more capable of escaping into the skies, and human beings are gonna be running around trying to escape somewhere into the earth, right? So there's a correspondence between jinn and ins and السماوات والأرض inside the ayah. So you see something about how the ayah is organized.

Understanding Key Terms

Now let's dig into some words. Brief comment on ma'shar. Ma'shar comes from ashara. Arabs here know, non-Arabs might also know. Ashara means what? Ten. Ma'shar means a large family, a family of nearly 10 or 10 or more. Ma'shar means groups of 10, 10, and 10, and 10, meaning people that come in legions, people that come in groups, right?

So actually, even though all of jinns and all of criminal human beings are gathered together, they're actual bunches, they're cliques, they're posses that are showing up. They're ma'shars, each one of them, you know? Because they were not, not everyone knew everyone, right? There's a certain group of people, certain social group that knew each other. So, كثرة في تداخل أشياء واختلاطها مكون كيانا مترابط A lot of things coming together. So Allah is actually describing the scene of lots and lots of jinns and humans made up of smaller groups getting together.

Now, that's يَا مَعْشَرَ الْجِنِّ وَالْإِنْسِ This is not that important, but now let's go to أَن تَنفُذُوا إِنِ اسْتَطَعْتُمْ أَن تَنفُذُوا

The word nafadh is used for nostrils, earlobes, any skin pores, anything that has an opening. It's nafadh. And it's used for an arrow that if somebody shot an arrow like a shot an animal and the arrow went inside the body and came out of the other side but only the tip of it came out of the other side and pierced through the other side.

So the arrow is basically inside the body and the tip of it is sticking out of the other end. That's actually called nafadh. نَفَذُ السَّهْمُ Okay. So, and it's also used for a pathway between mountains. That's also called a nafadh.

So what that all means is piercing through like a pathway that pierces through the mountains or pores in which through which you can pierce into the body that openings or the arrow that pierces through the body, right? So this word is being used now to describe basically what you can call crossing the border, piercing through the border.

And the word for border now that's being used, I'll come back to that one, is أَقْطَار مِنْ أَقْطَارِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ أَقْطَار comes from the word قَطَر which is a drop like المطر قطر من الماء Okay. Urdu speakers also know قَطْرَ قَطْرَ قَطْرَ کَرْکَ بَارِشْ ہُوتِي Right? Like the word قَطَر.

But it also means rows of things. So the visualization here of أَقْطَار is like you know like security posts. So you have borders and you have like a tower and then you have a fence then you have another tower then you have a fence then you have another tower and each one of those towers is a قَطَر and there's a row of them. Rows of trees are also called قَطَر you know.

The rows of camels that are lying together are also called أَقْطَار Right? The word train also قَطَار is used in that way. Right? So the point is this is on the peripheries of the skies and the earth. The image here is that of Hey! That looks like it's not a guarded post. Maybe we can escape from that side. Or maybe that one's a little bit abandoned. Maybe we can go over there.

Right? Find the spots that you think are vulnerable in the border and go run towards them. And pierce through that part because that'll be easier to get through. Right? Many countries have border crossing issues. Right? And where do people cross the border from? Where they are most there's the most vast opening. Right? There's large amounts of landscape like Arizona for example. Right? So there's a more possibility of border crossing that can happen there.

There are parts of Europe where people are crossing by way of sea because there's large, large area to cover so they can get through and pierce through the border. So the idea is if you can penetrate through and escape from this go ahead and do so.

Addressing Misconceptions

Now, some people have looked at this ayah and they created a new interesting problem because the moon landing which some say never happened and how could it happen because the Quran says it's impossible because Allah said إِن تَنفُذُوا مِنْ أَقْطَارِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ فَانفُذُوا لَا تَنفُذُونَ You're not going to be able to do it.

Oh my God, they landed on the moon. These kuffar have made a fake video about the moon landing and these satellites that are in space and all of that. These are all fake because Allah says you're not going to be able to cross.

Easy solution to that problem ladies and gentlemen is that the skies how many are there? There are seven skies and the first sky is decorated with stars. Allah says the first sky is decorated with stars and the stars the farthest of them are about 14 billion light years away from us. Right, so I mean even if you made it to the moon you haven't even made it past like the front porch.

Like you're still you know you're basically still like in the stoop. Right, so the Samawat is a distance you haven't even crossed Sama dunya for already so no need to panic. The second thing is this isn't talking about right now. Allah says we will free ourselves up for you. The context of the surah is important when he frees himself up for us everyone's dead and you know every he's busy all the time or you think he's that busy he shall free himself up for you and now he says escape if you want.

What is this scene describing? This life? This is judgment day. This is judgment we have to be mindful of context. Mindful of context. There's so many times people quote an ayah of the Quran and say stuff and make memes about it and I read that stuff and I'm like can you just read the surah a little bit? Can you read a little bit? Can you read the rest of the ayah sometimes? Even the rest of the ayah.

The Importance of Studying Complete Surahs

Before you put this and people are like mashallah you know and then I it's just the level of ignorance and disregard of the context of the Quran and what Allah is saying which is why we have to look at a surah as a unified entity and you have to respect the boundaries of a surah and you have to look at a surah like I always invite my students when you're about to study a new surah think of it as you're entering into a new palace a new world you know and you're gonna observe all of its walls all of its decor all of its designs all of its alleyways all of the ways that the colors come together right you're just you're in awe of this incredible majestic divine palace right treat a surah that way not take one brick from here and say I know exactly what this is about wait hold on it's a part of a building it's part of something larger right so that's the attitude we should have towards studying surahs of the Quran.

And there's one thing I'm hoping with this lecture series like going around and doing these surahs I could have been doing this at home like I could just turn a camera on and talk about Surah Ar-Rahman I'm cool with that but one of the reasons I'm doing this is because I feel this is my own feeling the study of the Quran is actually the only orphan subject in Islamic studies nowadays like we're studying everything else I'm taking a fiqh class I'm studying seerah I'm studying this that's all great wonderful but you know this whole thing Islam kind of emanates from where from the Quran that's the core of our religion like everything else is the offshoot everything else supplements this.

And what's happened is now we only study Quran when one ayah comes up and we want to use it as a dalil for something or the other right it's a reference book the Quran became a reference book evidences for my real subject but nobody says okay let's study Surah Al-Qamar let's study Surah Al-An'am no no no which ayah just tell me the ayah what's the subject of the ayah bro the subject is Surah Al-An'am.

Allah gave us these divine gifts each one of them from the heavens and we believe in their perfection we believe in their endless wisdom then how come we don't commit ourselves to dedicated study of them and my belief is it's not just a job for Islamic universities or scholars but this needs to become accessible to the Muslim public like people should just be more and more educated about surahs of the Quran and one surah at a time let's you know take one divine gift at a time and give it some time.

So I'm really happy you guys are getting to do this with me because I'm hoping this becomes part of a lifestyle for you you know that you're just on a journey one surah at a time and you're taking some time trying to understand what Allah is saying you know and as you're doing that maybe you're even making attempts to memorize that surah so even if it takes you six months a year it doesn't matter but by the end of that you have a deep relationship with at least one surah one gift from Allah you have inside your heart you know so that's just on a side note but anyway.

The Ultimate Sarcasm

يَا مَعْشَرَ الْجِنِّ وَالْإِنسِ إِنِ اسْتَطَعْتُمْ أَن تَنفُذُوا مِنْ أَقْطَارِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ فَانفُذُوا لَا تَنفُذُونَ إِلَّا بِسُلْطَانٍ

تَعَدُّوا الْأَمْكِنَةِ يُسَهِّلُ الْحُرُوبِ مِنْ إِحْتَجِهَاتِهَا Ibn Ashur says Allah's saying the skies and the earth find some opening go ahead there must be some place you can escape you're such a large gathering there's so many places the universe is so big and not just one sky all of the skies go ahead knock yourselves out and this is actually the height of sarcasm it's the height of sarcasm.

I'm gonna give you guys this old analogy I gave I can't think of a better one because you guys don't watch movies because you're too religious because you live in New Jersey so highly conservative state I'm going to try to relate this to you from the way of the kuffar who watch movies so there's a movie where there's like some criminals running and the cops are after him, right?

And the cops stop running after him and he's just jumping over fences cargo, trashing, you know tripping over trash cans and all that stuff and he's running, running, running and the police stop running and the police guy gets on the mic those big microphones they have and he goes hey, put some legs into it you call that a run? oh come on, get up you can do better than that and the cops aren't running they're just... he's climbing he can't climb okay, I'll give you like three tries come on, come on you got this, you got this.

Now if the cops are doing that saying go ahead, run come on, come on do it knock yourself out you know why? because they've got him completely surrounded so now they're just having fun with the thing with the dude, right? so when Allah says go ahead you know what? go, run you think you can escape? do it you know, get your fill get your fill you know.

In this series of surahs I'm reminded of something Allah said in 51 this is 55 in 51 in the Zariyat he said فَفِرُّوا إِلَى اللَّهِ run to Allah run to Allah in this life run to Allah and now judgment day comes and he says run away from Allah if you want go ahead see how that works out for you subhanAllah you know.

The comment I skipped here Alusi mentions الملائكة عليهم السلام ينزلون يوم القيامة angels will descend on judgment day like وَجَاءَ رَبُّكَ وَالْمَلَكُ صَفًّا صَفًّا the angels will descend rows upon rows فَيُحِيطُونَ بِجَمِيعِ الْخَلَائِقِ then they will have the entire creation surrounded فَإِذَا رَآهُمُ الْجِنُّ وَالإِنسُ هَرَبُوا when the jinns and human beings will see them they'll try and run فَلَا يَأْتُونَ وَجْهًا إِلَّا وَجَدُوا الْمَلَائِكَةَ أَحَاطَتْ بِهِ they won't find anywhere to go except angels have already got it covered so this is actually the meaning that he described.

Coming up next time in this Surah Ar-Rahman series wait I thought the whole point of judgment day was what ask about the sins and now he's saying on that day none shall be asked about their sins no human no jinn what in the world how does that make any sense? let me explain