Title:
How do the Doomed Recieve their Records on the Judgment Day?
Article:
In one of his brief writings titled: “How
do we Receive the Record on the Judgment Day?“, Mr. Jochen Katz has
pointed out a contradiction in two verses of the Qur’an. The contradiction,
according to Mr. Katz is:
Sura 84:10 says that the lost people are given the Record (of their bad
deeds) behind their back, but in Sura 69:25 it is given in their left hand.
Mr. Katz has also commented on Yusuf Ali’s explanation of the two verses. Mr.
Katz writes:
Yusuf Ali’s commentary states that their hands are tied behind their backs
[where does he get that from?] and it is given into their left hand, behind
their back … but that’s not what the Quran says, and a “harmonizing
assumption” has to be made to resolve the problem.
In this article, we shall consider the stated contradiction pointed out by
Mr. Katz.
Let us begin with a look at the two cited verses of the Qur’an. Al-Haaqqah
69: 25 reads as:
And as to him [i.e. the sinner], who shall be given his record in his left
hand, he shall cry out: ‘I wish my record was never given to me’.
Al-Inshiqaaq 84: 10 reads as:
And as to him [i.e. the sinner], who shall be given his record behind his
back…
But where is the contradiction?
If this is a contradiction, then I must submit that I have remained unaware
of the correct implication of the word “contradiction” throughout my
life. But then, I am quite hopeful that I would be excused for my ignorance of
this common English word, for English is not my native language. The blame
should obviously rest with the so-called authentic dictionaries of the English
language that had (incorrectly) taught me that a “contradiction”
implied ‘a proposition, statement, or phrase that asserts or implies both the
truth and falsity of something’; ‘a logical incongruity’; ‘a fact or condition
incompatible with another’; ‘a pair of opposites’; ‘a proposition so related to
another that though both may be false they cannot both be true’.
I would request Mr. Katz to guide me to the correct implication of the word
“contradiction”, for unfortunately the cited verses of the Qur’an, do
not meet any of the criteria of “contradiction” specified in any
dictionary of the English language.
One of the verses says that ‘on the Day of Judgment, the sinners shall be
given their record in their left hands’, while the other says that ‘on the Day
of Judgment, the sinners shall be given their record behind their backs’. Now,
the question is why is it impossible/logically incongruous/incompatible etc. for
a person to receive his record in his left hand, behind his back? Does Mr. Katz
truly thinks that a person cannot be given anything in his left hand behind his
back? or is it that to receive some thing in the left, a person must have his
hands in front of him? I am sure there must be some mistake in my understanding
of the word ‘contradiction’, otherwise I would have known, what ‘contradiction’
existed between the two cited verses of the Qur’an.
Maybe, the word ‘contradiction’ is synonymous with the word ‘different’. If
that is truly the case, then all statements that give ‘different’ (even
additional) information are indeed contradictory. Thus,
- (On 10th February 2000) my friend came in a blue car;
- (On 10th February 2000) my friend jumped out of his Mercedes convertible;
- (On 10th February 2000) my friend took out a handkerchief from the
dash-board; and
- (On 10th February 2000) my friend said that he did not know the meaning of
the word ‘contradiction’.
are all ‘contradictory statements — for they are all different (even though
all can be true).
I really do not think I can add anything further to this discussion, for I
feel that unless Mr. Katz would be kind enough to explain what a ‘contradiction’
really is, all further additions would be useless — and probably contradictory
too.
As regards the explanation of Yusuf Ali, termed as a ‘harmonizing assumption’
by Mr. Katz, I really do not think there is any need to defend it. It is only
Yusuf Ali’s mental picture that he seems to have derived from the various verses
of the Qur’an. Any other reader may develop a different picture.
However, it seems pertinent to give a few hints from the Qur’an regarding the
physical condition of the sinners based on which the readers may develop their
own mental pictures of these sinners as they would appear on the Day of
Judgment. The Qur’an tells us that:
- The sinners shall be treated like criminals and like criminals they shall
be brought shackled into the court of the Ultimate Justice (Ibraheem
14: 49);
- the sinners shall be given their record in their left hands (Al-Haaqqah
69: 25);
- the sinners shall be given their records behind their backs (Al-Inshiqaaq
84: 10).
In the light of these three points, and also the general information given by
the Qur’an that the sinners on that Day, shall be in a disgraceful condition,
Yusuf Ali gets the impression that the sinners shall be given their records, in
their left hands, while their hands are shackled behind their backs. However, in
the light of the information given above, we may form our own picture of the
sinners, as they shall appear on the Day of Judgment. So, let us put our
imaginations at work and see if we can develop a ‘harmonizing assumption’ which
is significantly different from Yusuf Ali’s.
But then, the “contradiction” remains.
© Copyright February 2000. All Rights Reserved with the Author