The Destination Is Unavoidable But The Path Is Still Open

﷽

One of this world’s defining qualities is it’s filled with lies and deceptions. From make-up crises, predictions by so-called “experts,” non-stop political and cultural arguments, scandals, and endless speculation about what may happen next, it becomes fatiguing. Sūrah al-Nabaʾ cuts through that noise by directing our attention to the one event that cannot be postponed or avoided: the Day of Judgment (يوم القيامة).

The Sūrah begins with people in disarray, disputing the reality of the Day of Judgment only to end with a scene completely the opposite: the day has arrived. A day in which the Spirit (Rūḥ/Angel Gabriel) and the other angels standing in ranks, with no one speaking except by Allāh’s permission. And unlike this dunyā every word will be the truth. What once seemed distant has now arrived.

The way in which Allāh presents this Day to us ought to change the way we should think about time and about our deeds. The Qur’ān says that on that Day a person will see

يَوْمَ يَنظُرُ ٱلْمَرْءُ مَا قَدَّمَتْ يَدَاهُ

“the Day every person will see what their hands have sent ahead”

meaning, we think our deeds and actions are in the past but in reality they’re in the future waiting for us.

But the Qur’ān never leaves mankind without direction and guidance. We should focus on which path we are taking back to our Lord: a path of humility, obedience and servitude, or a path of disobedience, hedonism, and obstinacy:

ذَٰلِكَ ٱلْيَوْمُ ٱلْحَقُّ ۖ فَمَن شَآءَ ٱتَّخَذَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِۦ مَـَٔابًا

“Whoever so will should take a path back to his Lord.”

al-Qurṭubī explains maʾāb as a return to Allāh through righteous action. The destination is unavoidable: Allāh! But the path one takes toward it is still open. The question is therefore not whether we are returning to Allāh—we are—but how we are traveling there, and what we are sending ahead of ourselves before we arrive.