Tafheem ul Quran

Surah 14 Ibrahim, Ayat 18-18

مَثَلُ الَّذِيۡنَ كَفَرُوۡا بِرَبِّهِمۡ​ اَعۡمَالُهُمۡ كَرَمَادِ ۨاشۡتَدَّتۡ بِهِ الرِّيۡحُ فِىۡ يَوۡمٍ عَاصِفٍ​ؕ لَا يَقۡدِرُوۡنَ مِمَّا كَسَبُوۡا عَلٰى شَىۡءٍ​ؕ ذٰ لِكَ هُوَ الضَّلٰلُ الۡبَعِيۡدُ‏ ﴿14:18﴾

(14:18) This is the example of those who disbelieve in their Lord: their works are like ashes upon which the wind blows fiercely on a tempestuous day. They shall find no reward for their deeds.25 That indeed is the farthest point in straying.


Notes

25. That is, those who were perfidious, faithless, and disobedient to the divine message, and refused to adopt that way to which the Messengers invited, will find in the end that all the deeds and earnings of their lives were as worthless as a heap of ashes. Just as each and every particle of a high mound of ashes formed during a long course of years is scattered by the wind on a stormy day, likewise all their grand works will prove on the stormy doomsday to be no more than a mound of ashes. Their dazzling culture, their grand civilization, their wonderful kingdoms and states, their magnificent universities, their sciences and their literatures, nay, even their hypocritical worship, and so called virtuous deeds, their charitable and reformative works of which they were very proud in the worldly life, shall prove to be as worthless as a heap of ashes, and will be scattered by the storm of the Day of Resurrection. So much so that there shall not remain a single particle of their works worthy of being placed in the divine scale on that Day in their favor.