Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 36 of 110
Al-Kahf 18:36
وَمَآ أَظُنُّ ٱلسَّاعَةَ قَآئِمَةً وَلَئِن رُّدِدتُّ إِلَىٰ رَبِّى لَأَجِدَنَّ خَيْرًا مِّنْهَا مُنقَلَبًا
“And I do not think the Hour will occur. And even if I should be brought back to my Lord, I will surely find better than this as a return."”
Saheeh International
Essence
He denies the Hour, then in the same breath names the better place of turning he expects to be given at it.
A reflection
He is not an atheist, he has a theology
The usual reading of this man is simple unbelief. He denies the Hour, so he is a denier, and the lesson is for deniers.
Read the second half of what he says and that collapses. He is already planning what he will be given when he gets there. He says my Lord. He expects an upgrade.
One of the long commentaries sets out his reasoning in order, and it is not stupid. Allah gave him wealth in this world. He concluded that it was given because he deserved it. Desert does not stop at death. Therefore the gift must continue, and larger.
The commentary then names the false step. The first premise. The opening of the door of this world on a man is mostly a matter of drawing him on by degrees, and giving him rope.
That is a more uncomfortable diagnosis than unbelief, because it is a position believing people hold constantly.
A tanner once had eleven months of exceptionally clean hides. No bloom, no scorch, nothing lost in the pits. He came to speak about his own hands as though something had been settled about them. Then the clean run stopped, and someone traced it to a dye house that had moved further up the river. For eleven months the water had been clean. Nothing had been settled about his hands at all.
The test is not whether you say thank you for your good fortune. It is whether you take good fortune as evidence about yourself.
He did. That is the whole error, and it is in the second half of the sentence, not the first.
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