قُل إِنَّ الأَوَّلينَ وَالآخِرينَ
لَمَجموعونَ إِلىٰ ميقاتِ يَومٍ مَعلومٍ
Say: ‘Indeed the former and latter generations
will all be gathered for the tryst of a known day.
EXEGESIS
Mīqāt (tryst) means the time for some event or act, also used for the place of an event. Here, it is more appropriate to interpret it as the time of resurrection, where the former and latter generations shall meet. Indeed the Day of Judgement is the tryst, the day the trumpet will be blown, and you will come in groups (78:17-18).
One of the Quranic names of the Day of Judgement is the Day of Gathering (yawm al-jamʿ, 42:7, 64:9). That is a day on which all mankind will be gathered (11:103). This idea is repeatedly mentioned in about twenty verses throughout the Quran. This is the Day of Judgement. We have brought together you and the ancients (77:38). What it means is that not only will you and your forefathers be resurrected, but you will be gathered and summoned together in one time and place. It will be but a single cry, and, behold, they will all be presented before Us (36:53).
EXPOSITION
When we are dead and become dust and bones, shall we be resurrected? And our forefathers too? (verses 47-48). These questions are not based on any rational argument against the possibility of a resurrection; they only indicate the people’s surprise at such an idea. They make note of their forefathers because it seems even less likely for them to come back to life, for they have long decayed and disintegrated. What they do not realise is that it is only one’s body that is destroyed over time, though even that does not escape the knowledge of God. Certainly We know the predecessors among you and certainly We know the successors, and indeed it is your Lord who will resurrect them. Indeed He is all-wise, all-knowing (15:24-25).
Similar questions are quoted from the disbelievers in many places in the Quran (17:49, 17:98, 23:35, 23:82-83, 36:78, 37:16, 37:53, 75:3, 79:11), and the Quran has given a variety of responses to them. Here, the Quran just firmly assures the audience that, yes indeed, everyone shall be mustered on the Day of Judgement: Indeed the Day of Judgement is the tryst for them all (44:40). This is because God is all-knowledgeable of the previous generations and has not lost their record (19:94, 20:52, 36:79). He is also all-powerful over everything including the resurrection of all mankind (2:148, 36:81, 42:29). Just as they noted their fathers after themselves in order to express the improbability of resurrection, the Quran mentions the former generations first as a decisive answer implying the inevitability of everyone’s resurrection.
Speaking of the Day of Resurrection as a known day further assures its occurrence: it has already been scheduled and its time has been set. It is so fixed and set that it shall come neither a moment earlier nor later: Say: ‘Your promised hour is a day that you shall neither defer nor advance by an hour’ (34:30); And We do not defer it but for a determinate term (11:104). However, its knowledge rests only with God (7:187, 20:52, 31:34, 33:63, 67:26).
The scene of that day is visualised elsewhere in the Quran as follows: That day We shall let them surge over one another, and the trumpet will be blown, and We shall gather them all (18:99). This argument and mentality of the disbelievers, the Quran’s answer to them, and what will happen in the hereafter, is discussed in further detail in chapter 45: They say: ‘There is nothing but the life of this world: we live and we die, and nothing but time destroys us.’ But they do not have any knowledge of that, and they only make conjectures. And when Our manifest signs are recited to them, their only argument is to say: ‘Bring our fathers back [to life], should you be truthful.’ Say: ‘It is Allah who gives you life, then He makes you die. Then He will gather you on the Day of Resurrection, in which there is no doubt. But most people do not know.’ To Allah belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and when the hour sets in, the falsifiers will be losers on that day. And you will see every nation fallen on its knees. Every nation will be summoned to its book: ‘Today you will be requited for what you used to do’ (45:24-28). Not only will everyone be gathered toward their Lord, but they will all be gathered while being humble and overpowered: and all will come to Him in utter humility (27:87).
The gathering on the Day of Judgement is not limited to mankind and jinn (6:128); rather, everything in the universe will collapse and crumple together, including the heavens, the earth, the sun, and the moon (21:104, 39:67, 75:9).
[1] Bahrayn, under w-q-t.
[2] Razi, 29/413.
[3] Razi, 29/413.
[4] Note that sāʿah (hour) in these cases means moment or the shortest span of time.