Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 69 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:69

ٱللَّهُ يَحْكُمُ بَيْنَكُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ فِيمَا كُنتُمْ فِيهِ تَخْتَلِفُونَ

“Allāh will judge between you on the Day of Resurrection concerning that over which you used to differ."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every dispute about faith, yours included, goes to one Judge, who will settle it on the Day of Resurrection.

A reflection

'Between you': the speaker stands in the court too

A solicitor has spent twenty years at the front of courtrooms. She knows where to stand and when to speak. Then a dispute over her late father's estate reaches court. For the first time she sits on the other bench. She is not the advocate now. She is one of the parties.

The ayah's small word baynakum, 'between you', does something similar. It comes straight after the Messenger ﷺ is told what to say to those who argue with him. One commentator notes that the address here is general. It takes in both sides, believers and deniers, not only the deniers as in the ayah before. Allah will judge between you, all of you.

That is humbling. The Prophet ﷺ was the one in the right. Yet the sentence does not cast him as the judge and them as the accused. It places everyone, the speaker included, before a single Judge. Only He decides.

Here the ego is quietly corrected. In our own disputes we tend to cast ourselves as judge. We announce verdicts on relatives, colleagues and strangers online. The ayah moves us from the bench to the floor of the court. Being right in an argument does not make you its judge. It makes you a party with a good case.

Does Allah need this role, as if He wanted the power to decide? He needs nothing. He is not asked about what He does, but they will be asked (21:23). It is creation that needs a Judge who cannot be lobbied, misled or worn out. A court where the Judge already knows everything is a mercy for anyone who has ever been misjudged.

The solicitor learned more that year than in twenty years of practice. She learned how a hearing feels from the other side. Every believer who reads this ayah is invited to sit there too, and to speak more gently from that seat.

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.