Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 52 of 111

Al-Isra 17:52

يَوْمَ يَدْعُوكُمْ فَتَسْتَجِيبُونَ بِحَمْدِهِۦ وَتَظُنُّونَ إِن لَّبِثْتُمْ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا

“On the Day He will call you and you will respond with praise of Him and think that you had not remained [in the world] except for a little."”

Saheeh International

Essence

One call, and everyone rises answering it with His praise, even the mockers, and the whole of earthly life suddenly feels like a short stay.

A reflection

The call no one leaves unanswered

Yadʿūkum: He calls you. The root is a voice that draws someone towards the caller. When milking, the Arabs left a little milk in the udder and called it the dāʿiya, the caller, because it drew the next milk down. So this is not a summons read from a list. It is a call that brings.

And everyone comes. The Quran describes it elsewhere as a single call from the earth, and at once you emerge (30:25). Our command is but one, like the blink of an eye (54:50). One classical commentary notes how swift and easy the picture is. 'Get up' takes no effort at all. There is no struggle with the material, no slow assembling of parts.

Now think how skilled we are at not answering. Picture a man who is proud of being unreachable. His phone lives on silent, his read receipts are switched off, and his voicemail has been full since spring. People learn to stop calling. He calls it protecting his peace.

There is one call that cannot be left on silent. The ego that spent a lifetime choosing which voices to answer will answer this one at once. And it will not answer sullenly. Fa-tastajībūna bi-ḥamdihi: you will respond with His praise.

That raises a fair doubt. Does Allah want praise even from people who never meant it? Is that not vanity on a cosmic scale? The commentators answer that their praise does not benefit them then, and it adds nothing to Him (35:15). One early scholar read bi-ḥamdihi as 'and praise belongs to Allah', a plain statement of fact.

Picture a sceptical inspector who once wrote that a new footbridge would fail. Years later he crosses it in a gale, gripping the rail, and mutters: it held. The engineer gains nothing from his words. They are simply, finally, true.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.