Turning the Scales of Justice

Turning the Scales of Justice

1989 3 March 6 Turning the Scales of Justice (366)

On the Day of Reckoning, God’s court of justice will be set up, and what an awesome affair it will be. No contumacy, denial, or attempts at obfuscation will be brooked. The great, the rich, the powerful will be rejected as being unworthy of giving evidence and, instead the lowly, the humble, and the unassuming will be set up as God’s witnesses. The veils of false piety will be snatched away and the honeyed eloquence of the hypocrites will be exposed for the hollow pretence that it is. Only the pure in spirit, the true servants of God will be asked to give the testimony which will decide the eternal fate of humanity. They may have been the most disregarded and negligible of people, but it will be their word which, on the brink of eternity, will turn the scales of divine justice.

The Prophet Mohammed once asked his companion, Abdullah Ibn Masood, to read him a part of the Quran. The latter was astonished at this request, as it was to the Prophet himself that ‘the Quran had been revealed. But when the Prophet explained that he liked to hear it read by someone else, he readily complied. He began by reciting the surah al-Nisa. When he reached the verse, “How will it be when we produce a witness from every nation and call upon you to testify against them?” (4:41), he suddenly stopped, for he could see that the Prophet’s eyes had filled with tears. Well might the Prophet grieve in advance over the fate of mankind on that terrible day. For in the next world, man will be deprived of all worldly props and he will be brought into God’s court as the saint or sinner that he is. The tables will indeed be turned on that day, with the lowliest of creatures being set up on high, and the highest in the land being cast down into the depths. If one could only conceive of the rigours of that day, one would cease to succumb too easily to the allurements of worldly things: worldly honour and glory would then be seen to be on one and the same plane with worldly disgrace.