Quranic Sciences

31 Soon will We apply Ourselves to you, O you two armies.

32 Which then of the bounties of your Lord will you deny?

Thaqula means to be weighty. Thaqalan means two entities or realities, seen or unseen. It can also mean two armies. Faragha means to be empty, to finish off, and here means to apply or occupy. Every jinn and ins, whether mu'min (be­liever) or kafir (denier), having either attained knowledge or remained in ignorance, will come to know the day of reckoning. Every­ one knows that whatever affair he is handling will come to an end. If it does not come to an end in this world while he is still alive, it will come to an end at his personal qiyama, at the hour of his death. Man is completely and totally cornered. He has no way to escape from the prison of time. If man dies into his situation, he is enlivened by the non-time Reality which encompasses the yard of this prison. If you die into the clock, you will not hear it anymore - it will be as if gone. As far as you are concerned, there will no longer be a clock; you will have transcended it.

33 O assembly of jinn and men! If you are able to pass through the regions of the heavens and the earth, then pass through; you cannot pass through but with authority.

34 Which then of the bounties of your Lord will you deny?

Qutr (plural is aqtar) is a diameter, region, zone, or something which is encompassed - a dominion. If one uses a compass one creates a circle that encompasses a space. "If you are able to pas through the regions of the heavens and the earth, then pass through." Allah encourages man to explore, but he cannot unless he attains the power, unless he obtains the sultan (authority). It is a posi­tive challenge to man.

Every sphere or zone has an energy. If man wants to go beyond a zone he must be able to pierce its limit. To escape the gravitational pull of earth a missile needs to obtain the speed of 17,000 miles per hour. Man needs sultan to overcome gravity. All of the powers are part of the one and only all-encompassing Power, which is an inter­zonal power.

35 The flames of fire and smoke will be sent on you two, then you will not be able to defend yourselves.

36 Which then of the bounties of your Lord will you deny?

Within the boundaries of the heavens and earth a point comes when the penetrations cease. There is a limit to every system and every creational situation. Jinn and ins can penetrate into the heavens, as man has done in the last few decades. But there will be zones in the heavens through which man will not be able to pass because of the great activity of meteorites or because of the presence of radiation or some other factors. As there are limits established in man's outward travel, so are there limits to which he may travel inwardly. The Prophet, salla-llahu `alayhi wa alihi wa sallam, said: "I was not given of inner knowledge but little." These are the laws of Reality. How can man deny the mercies of Allah? Even the limitations and their meanings -the fact that man is imprisoned in time and space - are great bounties.

37 So when the heaven is rent asunder, and then becomes red like hide,

38 Which then of the bounties of your Lord will you deny?

The time will come when the heavens-which are impenetrable, lim­ited, and built as though firm - will break apart. Shaqqa means to split. As creation is fragmented, another state will take hold of it, one in which heat dominates. At present, the heat of the planets and stars is in equilibrium. In our planetary system, an example of dis-equi­librium is found in the form of sunspots. Whenever they occur on the sun there are disturbances in the planetary system, though none are great enough to throw it out of balance. The system of counter­balanced forces will break when this journey in the cosmos reaches its point of maturity.

The same shattering occurs to man. While he lives, his spiritual and physical bodies hold together. Man contains an echo or an image of the entire cosmos. All of the functions in man's body are in equilibrium - his faculties, all of the electrical charges that run through his brain, the miles of nerves. This amazing entity will fall apart when the soul leaves. It then immediately will start to decay. That is what will happen to the heavens: the laws that hold them together will break and they will just disintegrate.

39 So on that day neither man nor jinn shall be asked about his sin.

40 Which then of the bounties of your Lord will you deny?

While the previous group of ayat spoke of the outer heavens, this group speaks of the inner space of the individual. Every ruh will spon­taneously transmit what it has gathered in the tuning period of life in this world. There will be nothing to ask, because the question will already have been answered.

Man in this life may be in nifaq (hypocrisy). He may hide his fears, anxieties and suspicions. Nafaq related to nifaq, means a tunnel. Man enters one hole .to come out from another. He is forever tunneling, trying to escape. The end to his efforts to escape comes when questioning ceases and he becomes an `answer'. Then he will beam and transmit the state in which he had left this world. If he has been transmitting the Qur'an, then he will be close to the main transmitter, Allah; he will be one of the ashabu-l-yami'n (the companions of the right). If he has been trans­mitting his own song which has his desires, expectations and self­-righteousness mixed into it, then his transmission will be as good as that mixture.

Adapted from the book: "The Mercy of Qur'an and the Advent of Zaman" by: "Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri"