Tafheem ul Quran

Surah 34 Saba, Ayat 3-3

وَقَالَ الَّذِيۡنَ كَفَرُوۡا لَا تَاۡتِيۡنَا السَّاعَةُ ؕ قُلۡ بَلٰى وَرَبِّىۡ لَـتَاۡتِيَنَّكُمۡۙ عٰلِمِ الۡغَيۡبِ ۚ لَا يَعۡزُبُ عَنۡهُ مِثۡقَالُ ذَرَّةٍ فِى السَّمٰوٰتِ وَلَا فِى الۡاَرۡضِ وَلَاۤ اَصۡغَرُ مِنۡ ذٰ لِكَ وَلَاۤ اَكۡبَرُ اِلَّا فِىۡ كِتٰبٍ مُّبِيۡنٍۙ‏ ﴿34:3﴾

(34:3) The unbelievers say: “How come the Hour is not coming upon us!”5 Say to them: “Yes indeed, by my Lord, by Him Who fully knows the realm beyond the ken of perception, that the Hour shall inevitably come upon you.6Nothing escapes Him, not even the smallest particle in the heavens or the earth; nor is anything smaller or bigger than that but is in a Manifest Book.”7


Notes

5. This they said satirically and mockingly. What they meant was: “This Prophet (peace be upon him) has been giving us the news of his coming of Resurrection for along time now, but Resurrection has not overtaken us so far although we have openly denied and rejected him as a Prophet, have been insolent to him and have ridiculed him in every way.

6. The use of the attribute “Knower of the unseen” for Allah while swearing by him by itself points to the fact that the coming of Resurrection is certain, but no one knows except Allah, Knower of the unseen, when exactly it will come. This same theme has been explained at different places in the Quran in various ways. For details, see (Surah Al-Aaraf: Ayat 187), (Surah TaHa: Ayat 15), (Surah Luqman: Ayat 34), (Surah Al-Ahzab: Ayat 63), (Surah Al-Mulk: Ayats 25-26), (Surah An-Naziyat: Ayats 42-44).

7. This is one of the arguments for the possibility of the Hereafter as is being stated in (verse 7) below. One of the reasons why the deniers of the Hereafter regarded the lifeafter- death as irrational was; They said that when all human beings will have become dust after death, and scattered away in particles, how it will be possible to bring all the countless particles together and combine them to be re-created as the same human bodies once again. This doubt has been dispelled, saying, “Every particle wherever it is, is recorded in God’s register, and God knows where a particle is. Therefore, when He wills to recreate, He will not face any difficulty in gathering together all the particles of the body of each and every man.”