And every one whose reckoning is taken shall be punished...

And every one whose reckoning is taken shall be punished, although it be that the punishment amounts to no more than a slight detention. And no one shall escape the Fire, and no one shall enter the Garden (merely) by virtue of his actions, except by the mercy of Allah, Exalted is He above all.[^6] And verily Allah will address His slaves, whether they be the earlier or the later ones, in one speech containing the complete reckoning of the deeds of every person.

And each person shall hear only that part of it which relates to himself, so that he shall imagine that he alone is being addressed and no one else. And Allah, Exalted is He, will not be diverted from addressing one person because He is addressing another. And He will be quit of His reckoning of the prior and later ones (i.e. all mankind) in the space of half an hour (sa'a), according to the computation of the hours of this world.

And Allah will confront each person with a book which will be found to be wide open, informing him of all his actions, omitting neither a minor nor a major sin.[^7] In this fashion will Allah constitute each person his own reckoner and judge, for he will be told: “Read thy book. Thy soul sufficeth as a reckoner against thee this day” (Qur'an 17:14) . Allah will put a seal upon the mouths of certain people, and their hands and feet and all their limbs will testify to things which they are hiding.

“And they say unto their skins: why testify ye against us? They say: Allah, Who giveth speech to all things, hath given speech to us, and it is He Who created you at the first and it is He unto Whom ye shall return. Ye did not hide yourselves lest your ears and your eyes and your skins should testify against you, but ye deemed that Allah knew not much of what ye did” (Qur'an 41:21-22) . [^1]: The best general account will be found in MC, 167-179 (art.21 of the Was. Abi Hanffa), also art.

21 of the Fiqh Akbar II, ibid., 195 and 231 sqq.; Macdonald, 306 (al-Ghazali) and other places; BHA, art. 244; KP, 110; Affifi, 163 sqq. [^2]: The translation of this verse presents some difficulty. Pickthall, Palmer, Rodwell, Bell and Muhammad `Ali render يتلو as "recites"; while the Urdu translator takes to mean "follows", and this appears to deserve careful consideration. Dr.