Surah Maryam, Ayah 84

The Idols of the Polytheists will deny Their Worship

Allah, the Exalted, informs about the disbelievers who associate partners with their Lord, that they have taken gods besides Allah, so that these gods may be a source of honor and might for them. They think that these gods give them power and make them victorious. Then, Allah mentions that the matter is not as they claim, and it will not be as they hope. He says,

كَلاَّ سَيَكْفُرُونَ بِعِبَـدَتِهِمْ

(Nay, but they will deny their worship of them,) on the Day of Judgement.

وَيَكُونُونَ عَلَيْهِمْ ضِدّاً

(and will become their adversaries.) This means that they will be foes in a state other than what they think about these gods. This is similar to Allah's statement,

إِنَّمَا نَعُدُّ لَهُمْ عَدًّا

"We are but counting for them a count down." - 19:84

This verse means: "Do not be impatient about their punishment because it is going to befall upon them in any case - and very soon. We have allowed them a fixed term in this world and that term is about to end. Then will come their retribution." نَعُدُّ لَهُمْ means: "We are counting for them, i.e. they do not have control on anything. Their days are numbered and We keep a count of every moment of their life and everything they do."

Once Ma'mun Rashid read Surah Maryam. Upon reading this particular verse, he desired that Ibn Simak, one of the Islamic scholars sitting in that meeting with him, to say something on it. Thereupon Ibn Simak submitted that when our breaths are numbered and their number cannot be enhanced, they will soon come to an end. The same notion is reflected in the following poetic verse:

حیاتک انفاس تعد فکلّمَا مضی نفس منک انتقصت بہ جزء اً

That is, the breaths of your lifer are counted. With every passing breath, your life gets reduced to that extent.

It is said that during one span of twenty-four hours, one breathes twenty-four thousand times. (Qurtubi)

The following stanza explores the same context:

و کیف یفرح بالدّنیاو لذّتھا فتی یُعَدّ علیہ اللفظ و النّفس

That is, how can one be so engrossed and relaxed with the worldly pleasures, while his words and breaths are being counted. (Ruh)

Man wants to be able to do whatever he likes in this world, but at the same time he does not want to be made to suffer the consequences of his wrongdoings. Naturally, such leniency is not to be expected from God. Therefore, man courts such beings as are supposedly near and dear to God and who could plead his case to Him. But such a course of action, based as it is on false conjectures, will be of no avail to him or to anybody else. So much so that even those beings whom he had supposed to be partners of God and whom he ritually worshipped, will themselves disown him on Judgement Day. They will show him nothing but hatred.