Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 71 of 111

Al-Isra 17:71

يَوْمَ نَدْعُوا۟ كُلَّ أُنَاسٍۭ بِإِمَـٰمِهِمْ ۖ فَمَنْ أُوتِىَ كِتَـٰبَهُۥ بِيَمِينِهِۦ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ يَقْرَءُونَ كِتَـٰبَهُمْ وَلَا يُظْلَمُونَ فَتِيلًا

“[Mention, O Muḥammad], the Day We will call forth every people with their record [of deeds].[764] Then whoever is given his record in his right hand - those will read their records, and injustice will not be done to them, [even] as much as a thread [inside the date seed].”

Saheeh International

Essence

On the Day each people is called by what it followed, the right-hand readers read gladly and lose nothing.

A reflection

One call, and every people answers it

Yawma nadʿū: the Day We call. Not 'the day people gather', or 'the day they are summoned'. We call, and the call reaches every people at once: kulla unāsin, every crowd of human beings that ever lived.

Picture a summer festival at dusk. Eighty thousand people hold up their phones and sing one man's words back at him. He stands in the light and feels enormous. Each of them feels like a small part of something larger.

On that Day the picture turns round. Every people is called bi-imāmihim, with its leader, with whatever it followed. The singer is called with his crowd, and the crowd with him. Nobody arrives as the main act. There is only the One who calls.

This is where the ego learns its true size. We spend years curating how we are introduced: the title, the bio, the photograph. Here we are named by what we actually walked behind. The description we wrote for ourselves is not read out.

The summons spares no one. Kings answer it with their courts, teachers with their students, the famous with their followers. One classical theologian traced the ayah's place in the passage. Having listed the honours of this life, it turns to rank in the next. The 'We' that honoured is the 'We' that calls.

Someone may ask whether it is domineering for God to summon and judge everybody. Is this the self-importance He condemns in us? But a court that summons is not arrogant; the summons is the condition of justice. Without it, every wrong done quietly would simply stand. And the ayah ends by binding the Caller Himself: they will not be wronged, not by a thread.

He gains nothing from our account; He is free of all need (35:15). The calling serves the wronged, and the truth.

So the real question is not whether you will answer. Everyone will. It is what you will be answering with.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.