Surah 'Abasa, Ayah 35

The Day of Judgement and the fleeing of the People from Their Relatives during it

Ibn `Abbas said, "As-Sakhkhah is one of the names of the Day of Judgement that Allah has magnified and warned His servants of." Ibn Jarir said, "Perhaps it is a name for the blowing into Trumpet." Al-Baghawi said, "As-Sakhkhah means the thunderous shout of the Day of Judgement. It has been called this because it will deafen the ears. This means that it pierces the hearing to such an extent that it almost deafens the ears."

يَوْمَ يَفِرُّ الْمَرْءُ مِنْ أَخِيهِ - وَأُمِّهِ وَأَبِيهِ - وَصَـحِبَتِهُ وَبَنِيهِ

(That Day shall a man flee from his brother. And from his mother and his father. And from his wife and his children.) meaning, he will see them and then flee from them, and seek to get away from them because horror will be so great and the matter will be so weighty. There is an authentic Hadith related concerning the intercession that states that every one of the great Messengers of firm resolve will be requested to intercede with Allah on behalf of the creation, but each of them will say, "O myself! O myself! Today I will not ask You (O Allah) concerning anyone but myself." Even `Isa bin Maryam will say, "I will not ask Him (Allah) concerning anyone but myself today. I will not even ask Maryam, the woman who gave birth to me." Thus, Allah says,

يَوْمَ يَفِرُّ‌ الْمَرْ‌ءُ مِنْ أَخِيهِ (the Day when one will flee from his brother...80:34). This depicts the scene when all the people will have gathered in the Plain of Gathering. Each person will be worried about himself, and the situation will be so horrifying and tense that it will make people heedless of anything around them. In the world, there are relationships between people that make one willing to lay down his life for the other, but on the Day of Resurrection there will be such horror and chaos that they will be unable to take care of anyone. In fact, even if one sees the other in front of him, he will turn away from him. They will try to flee from their brothers, from their mothers and fathers, from their spouses and their children. They will not be able to help any of them in the Hereafter, despite the natural attachment they had with them in the world. Normally, one is more anxious in this world about his parents than about his brothers, and he is more anxious about his wife and children than about his parents. Keeping this in view, the relationships, in the present verse, are arranged from lower order to higher order.

The Chapter ends on a note of warning to disbelievers that if they reject the Qur’ anic message and persist in opposition to the Holy Prophet ﷺ they will have to face a day of reckoning when misery, shame and ignominy will be their lot. The righteous believers, however, will reside in Gardens of Bliss, their faces beaming with joy and happiness.

The driving force behind the true godliness required of a man is, in reality, his sense of gratitude. If he gives serious consideration to his creation and the various natural systems in operation around him, a sense of gratitude towards his Lord will eventually develop in him. The state of being resulting from these feelings of gratitude and obligation is known as godliness, or adoration of God in the real sense.