Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 7 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:7

وَأَنَّ ٱلسَّاعَةَ ءَاتِيَةٌ لَّا رَيْبَ فِيهَا وَأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَبْعَثُ مَن فِى ٱلْقُبُورِ

“And [that they may know] that the Hour is coming - no doubt about it - and that Allāh will resurrect those in the graves.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The argument that opened with doubt closes here: the Hour is already on its way, and Allah will raise everyone in the graves.

A reflection

No grave has a side door

And that Allah will raise whoever is in the graves. The ayah does not list them. It does not sort them by rank, wealth or fame. One short phrase, man fī al-qubūr, holds every person ever buried.

The verb is yabʿathu, He raises. Its root carried a picture every desert traveller knew. A camel knelt at rest, its foreleg tied with a cord. The rider untied the cord and made it rise, and sent it on its way: baʿatha al-baʿīr. The lexicons sum up the root as removing whatever held a thing back from moving. The dead are kneeling, held. Then the cord is untied.

Picture a cemetery groundsman on a spring morning. He mows past a marble mausoleum with a family crest and iron railings. A few rows on, he mows past a plot marked only by a jam jar of daffodils. The mower takes the same straight line past both. Under the grass, both are kneeling. Both will rise to the same call.

The ego spends a lifetime arranging how it will be seen. The title on the door, the size of the house, perhaps even the stone above the grave. This ayah ignores all of it. Every grave answers one voice. No grave has a side door or a priority queue.

Does a God who raises everyone simply want to be acknowledged? The commentators give the purpose plainly. He raises them for their reckoning and their recompense. The raising is for justice, not for His need. The wronged who died unheard, and the wrongdoers who died untouched, are both inside that phrase.

So walk past a cemetery humbly. The people there are not finished. They are waiting, as you will wait, for a cord to be untied.

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.