When the indisputable Event [of the Last Hour] occurs, no one then shall belie its occurrence!
These two lines are among the most unforgettable opening verses of any chapter in the Quran. They belong, of course, to the chapter of Al- Waaqi `ah. The Arabic word 'waaqi'ah' means `event,’ ‘happening,' or `occurrence’.
The revelation of this chapter took that meaning, made it definite, and transformed it for all time into an explicit name for the end of time - and what a name it is! For it tells us that despite all our trepidation, doubts, or misgivings, this cataclysmic close to all life in the world and to the world we all live in is surely coming. By the definition of the word that names this chapter, as well as according to its Divine promise, ready or not, this event is "happening."
But an Arabic word is not all this chapter alters. Anyone who measures out its meanings in the chant of a still night, his heart will change, and change utterly. "If one would know the fateful tidings of the foremost and the least of humanity, of Heaven's inhabitants and the tenants of Hell, of this world's denizens and the dwellers of the Hereafter, let him read the chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah." So said Masrooq, the famed savant of the Quran from the generation that succeeded that of the Prophet thus known as the Successors.
Truly spoken are Masrooq's words, sum¬ming up the chapter brilliantly in its message, capturing also the indelible impression it left upon its Messenger, Muhammad for it is known that he remained specially preoccupied with this chapter for the duration of his mission.
A Bridge Between
In the sequence of the Quran's gradual revelation to the Prophet the chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah (56) came after the chapter of Taa Haa (20) and before the chapter of Ash-Shu'araa’ (26).
Both these chapters form a strong, nearly continuous exhortation to the Prophet to two ends: (1) To persevere in delivering Allah's Message, like the prophets, may Allah exalt their mention, who preceded him—and above all, Moses, may Allah exalt his mention, whose Divine charge the Prophet's own mission would spectacularly fulfill and to whose commission his own was so closely linked; (2) These illustrations seek to uplift and spur on the spirit of the Prophet up from his acute distress and out of the profound sense of sorrow he felt for a deluded people, blindly implacable in their opposition to his call to no other end but Hellfire.
Yet just before its own close, the chapter of Taa Haa turns from its attentive account of the life-struggle of Moses, may Allah exalt his mention, first against Pharaoh, tyrant of the earth, and then against the recalcitrant among his delivered but soon-fallen people. Up and away it suddenly whisks us to the shattering event of the flattening of the earth and the ensuing resurrection. Swiftly it summons us to the pulverized plane of the Judgment Day, utterly leveled without curve or wave.
The chapter of Ash-Shu'araa’, in a brief verse after its opening, picks up this same theme: Forever separated in the next life are the beliers from the believers by the most damning of Divine Judgments gone forth in the world.
In between these two chapters and linking up their worldly themes descends the chapter of Al-Waaqi`ah as an extended exposition spanning the event of the end of this world and the beginning of the next. It suspends in time, before our minds for consideration, the decisive epoch of life we are all destined to live in the Hereafter based upon our earthly reaction to Divine Revelation and the brotherhood of prophets, may Allah exalt their mention, who have delivered it.
In literary terms, the chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah forms an otherworldly interlude between the breathless scenes of life's drama and trauma that emerge almost without intermission in the chapters of Taa Haa and Ash-Shu'araa’. Their two narratives saturate the heart with heavy concern for the harrowing earthly days that conspire to daunt all who would carry the mission of the prophets and don the mantle of Muhammad . Yet even these anxious illustrations simply fade to insignificance in the face of the almost matter-of-fact case for the life to come made by the chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah. In the idiom of the soul, the chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah lays it all down for the believers. It gives them an ironclad and relentlessly awe-inspiring rationale for enduring the most shocking descent of unbelieving man into brutal bestialism; for it rivets the believers' attention, with anticipation and trepidation, on the beginning of an everlasting bliss that lies exalted, beyond the abasing end of a hasty world.
Little wonder, then, that when Abu Bakr, the Prophet's great friend to the end, may Allah be pleased with him, pointed to the silver traces that seemed so suddenly to shine from the Prophet's head, Muhammad, sallallaahu alayhe wa sallam, said: "Grey have [the revelations of] Hood and Al-Waaqi'ah rendered me."
Ever in his prayer, and especially before morning would break upon the world in the fading hour of the dawn office, the Prophet was moved to recite Al-Waaqi'ah. For, indeed, it bears to the human ear the very uttermost end of intelligence reports about the Afterlife that the heart of man beats so restlessly to know.
Human beings aspire to discover the secrets of life and death, to uncover the origins of our own existential mystery. We would unfurl the scrolls of all time if we could and replay the events of history.
To unravel the wonders that wheel through the heavens, to sunder the foundations of an earth old beyond ancient, to know intimately the orders that unleash life's complexity ¬¬– upon this all the might of the human intellect has ever been. In its quest, time out of mind, and sums of wealth and resources above the calculable have been spent.
How, then, are the thoughts of so vast a number of people turned away from what Heavenly Revelation unveils for them freely, concerning the great truths of life and their own inevitable destiny, and about the conditions that will prevail at the ending of the world and the beginning of eternity?
Summarizing the Chapter
The chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah opens with a booming clarion cry, a crashing epiphany, that ushers its witness's mind to the edge of creation's cataclysmic fate and onto the near shores of his or her own swift passage into undisputed reality, when this earth has been leveled into mere strewn dust. Quickly dispensing with a world left utterly shattered, it instantly sorts us into three diverse groups: One to the right; one to the left; and the third—the illustrious forerunners—nearest Allah Almighty Himself, up ahead.
The defiant unbelievers, grey with terror, utterly disoriented, mumbling in confusion, shall throng, exposed on the left. They shall be turned toward torment and eternally divided from the righteous, who are gathered on the right and shaded by the blessing of Allah Almighty, behind the forerunners in goodness.
These are the consequences of earthly human life, graphically and factually sorted out. There is no fourth prospect. Such are the judgments that Allah Almighty shall issue. The chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah now expends nearly half its 96 verses reading out the only three eventualities in the Hereafter that one shall face (7-56).
Next, the chapter's closing argument ensues—its presentation impassioned, its logic unimpeachable.
Therewith is one cautioned to take a considered approach to the decision that must now be made as to the authenticity of this Heavenly Revelation and how to live the rest of life with it in full view.
If facts are to be asserted, it contends, and events verified—and specifically those for which the chapter itself shall make a case—let them be demonstrable in creation, not conjectured, with tangible evidence provided, not abstractions. Moreover, one is to duly reflect on them as such, whether they be near or far, great or small. Thereafter, one should have the intellectual courage to affirm the truths to which his own mind has led him, and the moral sense to act in his own highest and best interest.
In other words, one ought to trust his own contemplation of the physical exhibits of creation that the chapter has placed before him, rather than surrender his or her thought to the unverified speculations that others have elevated to sacred assumptions in the culture on no higher authority than a sneering peer pressure.
The Arguments of the Indisputable Event
The Chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah produces five concrete exhibits:
1. Men and women emit fertile fluids that in intimacy mingle into new human life. Yet they are incapable of manufacturing these prolific secretions. Thus, it is only Allah Almighty who has created this and, by implication, made death, and who is, therefore, manifestly able to bring one to life again in a new creation (58-59).
2. Human beings till plants that then sprout and bear fruit of every kind, color, and benefit. Yet they themselves are unable to cause them to flourish. Thus, it is none other than Allah Almighty who makes them grow – and should He so will, He Almighty shall make them wither, until one is sorrowfully desolated, or all humanity becomes destitute (63-67).
3. People must drink water to live. Through a wondrous cycle from rivulet to ocean, and liquid to vapor, clouds suspended in heaven and driven through its spheres shower countless droplets of water over a spacious earth, quenching an ever-thirsty creation, drenching a soil endlessly in need, and filling lakes and streams that team into the seas. Without it man dies. Yet he is powerless to form it or pull it down from the clouds. Thus, Allah Almighty alone generates life-giving water then sends it down from the clouds. And should He Almighty turn it bitter, who then shall make it sweet (68-70)?
4. Humanity kindles fire from tees or their remnants. Its heat energy is a vital resource – without which human survival and development would have been impossible. Yet human beings do not themselves produce it. Only Allah, The Most High, has brought its living woods forth from the earth. Moreover, the fact that its energy exists in ready, latent, transportable form in either living or dead trees and plants, and those that have been reduced to coal, oil, or other forms, has been a great provision of mercy from Him, The Most High, for our security and continued existence. Fire's value for man lies not only in its practical uses, however; it inheres also in its imaginative, metaphorical, and comparative dimension. For it ever speaks its forewarning to humankind about the ultimate reality of Hell that awaits unbelief and wrongdoing in the Hereafter [71:53].
5. Man has life. From where did it come? Then he dies. Where did it go, and who took it? If man is not to be brought back in a new life, as the beliers of Allah, The Most High, and Judgment in the Hereafter contend, then why are human beings unable to retrieve these souls from death? We still have possession of their bodies. This can only mean that life comes into our physical forms from a Giver of Life who withdraws it whenever he deems fit—and we are helpless to stop Him, even if we are present when a soul escapes its human housing—rather, when its Maker summons it from a place so near we cannot even see it. Surely, the One who makes and takes life can replace it, put it into a new form, or restore it in its old one, remade anew (6, 61, 82-87).
Necessary Conclusions
To contemplate these phenomena is rationally to conclude that the world we inhabit—something of the substance of which we have tested and the reality of which we have observed—is provisional, and that, as such, it cannot even provide for itself.
Indeed, the human being, its most capacitated and creative creature, is reduced to a mere steward, to caring for and conserving all that it has been provided with or else it will itself die; for it has no way to achieve genesis, even for its own survival, of its most basic needs, let alone for the urgencies of others. We must, therefore, conclude that man and all his world lives by the provision, and therefore, at the mercy, of a Provider—One apart who does, and who has, brought both man and his provision into existence, and who sustains them both. This is Allah The Most High.
At this point, one is expected to have the insight to recognize that the words of Chapter of Al-Waaqi'ah are those of one's Creator, and to have the wisdom to listen attentively as He divulges to him the mystery of his own fateful eternity, the perilous purpose of this earthly journey, and the plan for safe passage to a destiny after this life that shall end in his or her inclusion in only one of the three ranked classes—an indisputable event that shall happen inevitably.
