Al-Risala (English), October 1986

It is in giving that we receive

1986 10 October 20 It is in giving that we receive (18) The Prophet said that the Lord says: “Mankind, spend and you will be spent upon,”

(Bukhari and Muslim)

The Great Happening

1986 10 October 20 The Great Happening (385) The Prophet Mohammad once asked his companion, Abdullah ibn Masood, to read him a part of the Quran. “I – read the Quran to you, when unto you it has been revealed?” Ibn Masood asked. “Yes,” the Prophet answered; I like to hear it read by someone else.” So Abdullah ibn Masood started Surah An-Nisa. When he reached this verse, the Prophet asked him to stop:

How will it be when we produce a witness from every nation and call upon you to testify against them? (4: 41)

Abdullah ibn Masood looked at the Prophet and saw that tears were flowing from his eyes.

What an awesome event the setting up of God’s court of justice will be. There will be no occasion for contumacy or denial. Those whom people disregarded in the world, will be the ones to be brought forward as God’s witnesses; for they were God’s witnesses on earth, warning mankind of the doom to come. They may have been thought of as most insignificant people on earth, but theirs will be the testimony that will decide people’s eternal fate.

Think of the state of those who were loquacious in the world, but find themselves wordless on that day; and of those who wielded power and prestige, only to be divested of all traces of might. Superficial veils will be rent asunder, and those who feigned false piety will be exposed for the hypocrites they were. The tables will indeed be turned on that day, when many who are last in the world will be first in the sight of God, and the filth and pollution of what had seemed pure and attractive will be revealed before the eyes of man. Much that man looks upon with relish now, will send him reeling back in horror then. In this world people’s real natures are concealed. For some, it is attractive words which have hidden their inner states while for others it is material splendour. But in the next world these things will be taken away from man; he will be brought forward in his real state. What a calamitous day that will be. If one were to gauge the severity of that day, one would cease to talk so pugnaciously, or be so allured by worldly things; worldly honour would seem quite meaningless.