That day We shall resurrect from every nation a group of...

That day We shall resurrect from every nation a group of those who denied Our signs, and they shall be held in check.” [^3] In order to provide a good ground for proving the question of raj‘ah on the basis of these two verses, let us consider the following points: The exegetes of the Qur’an { mufassirun } think that these two verses talk about the Day of Resurrection and the first one discusses one of the pre-Resurrection signs just as Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti narrates in his exegesis { tafsir }, Ad-Durr al-Manthur , on the authority of Ibn Abi Shaybah from Hudhayfah that khuruj ad-dabbah (in the first verse) is among the events which precede the Day of Resurrection.[^4] There is no doubt that on the Day of Resurrection, all human beings shall be mustered and not only a specific group from every community.

Regarding the mustering of all human beings, the Qur’an states: "ذلك يوم مجموع له الناس." “That is a day on which all mankind will be gathered.” [^5] And in another place, it states: ﴿ وَيَوْمَ نُسَيِّرُ الْجِبَالَ وَتَرَى الْأَرْضَ بَارِزَةً وَحَشَرْنَاهُمْ فَلَمْ نُغَادِرْ مِنْهُمْ أَحَدًا ﴾ “The day We shall set the mountains moving and you will see the earth in full view, We shall muster them, and We will not leave out anyone of them.” [^6] Therefore, on the Day of Resurrection all human beings shall be gathered, and not only a specific group.

The second of the aforementioned two verses points clearly to the mustering of a particular group from every community, and not all human beings, as is stated below: ﴿ وَيَوْمَ نَحْشُرُ مِن كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ فَوْجًا مِّمَّن يُكَذِّبُ بِآيَاتِنَا فَهُمْ يُوزَعُونَ ﴾ “That day We shall resurrect from every nation a group of those who denied Our signs, and they shall be held in check.” [^7] This statement points clearly to the fact that not all human beings will be mustered.

Conclusion: These three short preliminaries show clearly that the mustering of a particular group of human beings who denied the divine signs, as deduced from the second verse, is an event that shall happen prior to the Day of Resurrection. This is because on the Day of Resurrection the mustering includes the entire humanity and it is not limited to a particular group.

This clarification proves the idea of the return of a group of human beings after death and before the Resurrection, and this phenomenon is referred to as raj‘ah .

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