Approaching the West — Page 185
A pproaching the West—185 dimension of life shall commence in the Hereafter. In the very beginning of the Holy Qur’ ā n, in S ū rah Al-F ā ti ḥ ah, four major attributes of God are mentioned, and one of them is that He is M ā liki Yaumid-D ī n—the Master of the Day of Judgment (1:4). Other commonly used terms in the Holy Qur’ ā n related to the inevitable event in the future are the Day of Resurrection (Yaum al-Qiy ā mah), the Hour of Doom (Al-S ā ‘ah), the Last Day (Yaum al- Ā khir), and the Day of Judgment (Yaum al-D ī n). The Holy Qur’ ā n gives such importance to the belief in the Hour that some of the S ū rahs are wholly devoted to the description of the events that shall take place on that day. One S ū rah is named Al-Qiy ā mah—the Resurrection, another is entitled Al-Gh ā shiyah—the Overwhelming Calamity, and still another is called Al- Q ā ri‘ah—the Striking Calamity. Dealing with the same subject matter, one S ū rah is named Al-Haqqah (the Inevitable), and at other places the Holy Qur’ ā n calls it Yaum al-Fa ṣ l—the Day of Decision and Yaum al- Ḥ is ā b —the Day of Reckoning. The Hour in the sense of ‘end’ or ‘termination’ has been used in the Holy Qur’ ā n to indicate also the death of individuals as well as a crushing defeat of an enemy. For example, ‘The Hour’ used in the sense of a ‘sudden death’ is: Those indeed are the losers who deny the meeting with All ā h, so much so, that when the Hour shall come on them suddenly, they will say, ‘O, our grief for our neglecting this Hour!’ (6:32) The same term is used in the sense of a crushing defeat that breaks the power of an enemy: