Al-Qariah Tafsir
101:1 - 101:11 | The Calamity
This Makkan Surah describes the Judgment Day as the Day of Clamour, when men will be distracted and the landmarks of this world will be lost, but every deed will be weighed in a just balance, and find its real value and setting.
الْقَارِعَةُ
The (Day) of Noise and Clamour:
مَا الْقَارِعَةُ
What is the (Day) of Noise and Clamour?
وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا الْقَارِعَةُ
And what will explain to thee what the (Day) of Noise and Clamour is?
يَوْمَ يَكُونُ النَّاسُ كَالْفَرَاشِ الْمَبْثُوثِ
(It is) a Day whereon men will be like moths scattered about,
6252 Moths are frail light things. To see them scattered about in a violent storm gives some idea of the confusion, distress, and helplessness in which men will be at first overwhelmed on the Day of Account. Old memories will be like a book almost blotted out. New hopes will be vague in a new world just rising on the horizon. But it will be a perfectly just world, and no good action will be lost and no evil one but will have its compensating value estimated.
وَتَكُونُ الْجِبَالُ كَالْعِهْنِ الْمَنْفُوشِ
And the mountains will be like carded wool.
6253 Cf. n. 5682 to 70:9 . The mountains are solid things, which seem as if nothing could move them. But in that tremendous cataclysm they will be scattered about like flakes of teased or carded wool. This is a metaphor to show that what we consider very substantial in this life will be as an airy nothing in the spiritual world.
فَأَمَّا مَنْ ثَقُلَتْ مَوَازِينُهُ
Then, he whose balance (of good deeds) will be (found) heavy,
6254 The Good Deeds will be weighed and appraised. This appraisement will be of the nicest and justest kind: for it will take into account motives, temptations, provocations, surrounding conditions, antecedents, subsequent amends, and all possible connected circumstances. Against them, presumably, will be deeds of the opposite kind, appraised in the same way. If the good predominates, the judgement will be in the man's favour, and he will be ushered into a life of good pleasure and satisfaction. This will of course be on another plane. (R).
فَهُوَ فِي عِيشَةٍ رَاضِيَةٍ
Will be in a life of good pleasure and satisfaction.
6255 Cf. 98:8 , and n. 6233 , but perhaps the Bliss is not of the same grade for all men. In every case it is bliss, but bliss suited to the particular nature of the individual concerned.
وَأَمَّا مَنْ خَفَّتْ مَوَازِينُهُ
But he whose balance (of good deeds) will be (found) light,-
فَأُمُّهُ هَاوِيَةٌ
Will have his home in a (bottomless) Pit.
6256 Just as grades of bliss are indicated for the righteous, so apparently we are to understand grades of punishment suited to the sins of the individual sinners concerned.
وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا هِيَهْ
And what will explain to thee what this is?
نَارٌ حَامِيَةٌ
(It is) a Fire Blazing fiercely!
6251 The Day of Noise and Clamour is the Day of Judgement, when the whole of the present order of things will be overthrown with a tremendous convulsion. Cf. n. 6235 to 99:1 , and n. 6096 to 88:1 . AJ] our present landmarks will be lost. It will be a stunning experience to begin with, but it will inaugurate a new world of true and permanent values, in which every human deed will have its true and just consequences, as if weighed in the balance. See verses 6-11 below.