Ghafir · Makki · ayah 32 of 85

Ghafir 40:32

وَيَـٰقَوْمِ إِنِّىٓ أَخَافُ عَلَيْكُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلتَّنَادِ

“And O my people, indeed I fear for you the Day of Calling[1370] -”

Saheeh International

Essence

He warns a court full of connections about a Day when everyone will be calling someone, and no title or family name will answer.

A reflection

Not a day of silence

Most people picture the Day of Judgement as silent. A vast hush, everyone frozen in dread. The believer in Pharaoh's court gives it a different name. Yawm al-tanād: the Day of Calling. More exactly, the day of calling to one another.

The commentaries fill that name with voices. The people of the Garden call to the people of the Fire: we have found what our Lord promised us to be true (7:44). The people of the Fire call back: pour some water on us (7:50). The people of the Heights call out to men they recognise. Every people is called by its leader (17:71). At the scales, a caller announces aloud that so-and-so is saved for ever, or lost for ever. One commentary adds that the wrongdoers call out to one another in grief.

So the Day is not quiet. It is full of calling. And almost none of it is answered the way the caller hopes.

At a summer music festival the phone network goes down. Thousands of people stand in a field shouting their friends' names into the crowd. Everyone is calling. Hardly anyone is found.

That is the image the word carries. Not silence, but a terrible noise of people who cannot reach each other.

The believer chose this name for a reason. He was speaking to a court where calling the right person got things done. He was telling them about a day when that skill would be worth nothing. The only call that mattered would already have been made, or not made.

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.