Appendix One: The Table of the Two Examinations
The noise of this world runs down — its pains, its joys, its ornaments — and the wall of death falls in, and every creature comes out into the open before the Lord of the Worlds. There the great uncovering happens, and people are sorted into two kinds with no third. The day of the result is not measured by the hours of this world: lives their owners reckoned long shrink until they feel, to the men who lived them, like an hour of a single day — set against a day whose length the revelation states:
تَعْرُجُ ٱلْمَلَٰٓئِكَةُ وَٱلرُّوحُ إِلَيْهِ فِى يَوْمٍۢ كَانَ مِقْدَارُهُۥ خَمْسِينَ أَلْفَ سَنَةٍۢ
(Whereby) the angels and the Spirit ascend unto Him in a Day whereof the span is fifty thousand years.
And a terror overtakes people that carries the mind away, so that every nursing mother forgets the child at her breast:
يَوْمَ تَرَوْنَهَا تَذْهَلُ كُلُّ مُرْضِعَةٍ عَمَّآ أَرْضَعَتْ وَتَضَعُ كُلُّ ذَاتِ حَمْلٍ حَمْلَهَا وَتَرَى ٱلنَّاسَ سُكَٰرَىٰ وَمَا هُم بِسُكَٰرَىٰ وَلَٰكِنَّ عَذَابَ ٱللَّهِ شَدِيدٌۭ
On the day when ye behold it, every nursing mother will forget her nursling and every pregnant one will be delivered of her burden, and thou (Muhammad) wilt see mankind as drunken, yet they will not be drunken, but the Doom of Allah will be strong (upon them).
Then the papers are given out, and here the scene divides in a way that never comes together again. One man takes his record and cannot wait until he has walked away; he lifts it above his head and calls to those around him to come and look:
فَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِىَ كِتَٰبَهُۥ بِيَمِينِهِۦ فَيَقُولُ هَآؤُمُ ٱقْرَءُوا۟ كِتَٰبِيَهْ إِنِّى ظَنَنتُ أَنِّى مُلَٰقٍ حِسَابِيَهْ
Then, as for him who is given his record in his right hand, he will say: Take, read my book! Surely I knew that I should have to meet my reckoning.
And another man is handed his record in his left hand, and wishes he had never seen it at all:
وَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِىَ كِتَٰبَهُۥ بِشِمَالِهِۦ فَيَقُولُ يَٰلَيْتَنِى لَمْ أُوتَ كِتَٰبِيَهْ وَلَمْ أَدْرِ مَا حِسَابِيَهْ
But as for him who is given his record in his left hand, he will say: Oh, would that I had not been given my book And knew not what my reckoning!
Then comes the driving on: one company is driven to a gate that is not opened until they reach it, and another company is driven to gates already open before they arrive, whose keepers meet them with peace:
وَسِيقَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوٓا۟ إِلَىٰ جَهَنَّمَ زُمَرًا ۖ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا جَآءُوهَا فُتِحَتْ أَبْوَٰبُهَا وَقَالَ لَهُمْ خَزَنَتُهَآ أَلَمْ يَأْتِكُمْ رُسُلٌۭ مِّنكُمْ يَتْلُونَ عَلَيْكُمْ ءَايَٰتِ رَبِّكُمْ وَيُنذِرُونَكُمْ لِقَآءَ يَوْمِكُمْ هَٰذَا ۚ قَالُوا۟ بَلَىٰ وَلَٰكِنْ حَقَّتْ كَلِمَةُ ٱلْعَذَابِ عَلَى ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ قِيلَ ٱدْخُلُوٓا۟ أَبْوَٰبَ جَهَنَّمَ خَٰلِدِينَ فِيهَا ۖ فَبِئْسَ مَثْوَى ٱلْمُتَكَبِّرِينَ وَسِيقَ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّقَوْا۟ رَبَّهُمْ إِلَى ٱلْجَنَّةِ زُمَرًا ۖ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا جَآءُوهَا وَفُتِحَتْ أَبْوَٰبُهَا وَقَالَ لَهُمْ خَزَنَتُهَا سَلَٰمٌ عَلَيْكُمْ طِبْتُمْ فَٱدْخُلُوهَا خَٰلِدِينَ
And those who disbelieve are driven unto hell in troops till, when they reach it and the gates thereof are opened, and the warders thereof say unto them: Came there not unto you messengers of your own, reciting unto you the revelations of your Lord and warning you of the meeting of this your Day? they say: Yea, verily. But the word of doom of disbelievers is fulfilled. It is said (unto them): Enter ye the gates of hell to dwell therein. Thus hapless is the journey's end of the scorners. And those who keep their duty to their Lord are driven unto the Garden in troops till, when they reach it, and the gates thereof are opened, and the warders thereof say unto them: Peace be unto you! Ye are good, so enter ye (the Garden of delight), to dwell therein;
And there is no examination after this examination, and no resit held next year: once the result is announced it is a dwelling with no moving on from it, and that is why it is called the abode of settling. And in that vast crowd one call is heard, addressed to no soul but the one its owner knew in this world by its stillness:
يَٰٓأَيَّتُهَا ٱلنَّفْسُ ٱلْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ ٱرْجِعِىٓ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةًۭ مَّرْضِيَّةًۭ فَٱدْخُلِى فِى عِبَٰدِى وَٱدْخُلِى جَنَّتِى
But ah! thou soul at peace! Return unto thy Lord, content in His good pleasure! Enter thou among My bondmen! Enter thou My Garden!
It is a call whose owner does not mistake his own name, because he heard his Lord call him in this world and answered.
So let this book, and this call to faith, be a guiding light and a spur to everyone with sense: to take provision for his tomorrow, to put his answer papers in order, and to feel his Lord watching him in every breath and every movement — before what was entrusted is handed back, and the pens dry, and the records are folded away.
And after all that: as long as this line is being read, the bell has not been rung yet, the hand you raise now is answered, and the door you have stopped at is open, and from inside it you are being called:
۞ قُلْ يَٰعِبَادِىَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا۟ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا۟ مِن رَّحْمَةِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ ٱلذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا ۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلْغَفُورُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
Say: O My slaves who have been prodigal to their own hurt! Despair not of the mercy of Allah, Who forgiveth all sins. Lo! He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.
غَداً تُجْلَى صَحَائِفُنَا جِهَاراً
فَلَا سِتْرٌ هُنَاكَ وَلَا رَفِيقُ
Tomorrow our records are laid open in the sight of all; there is no cover there, and no companion.
وَيُوزَنُ كُلُّ مَا سَطَرَتْ يَدَانَا
وَلَا يَنْجُو مِنَ الْوَزْنِ الدَّقِيقُ
Everything our two hands wrote down is weighed, and not the smallest thing escapes the weighing.
وَلَا دَوْرٌ يُعَادُ وَلَا رُجُوعٌ
وَأُغْلِقَ دُونَنَا بَابٌ وَثِيقُ
There is no resit and no going back, and a firm door is shut against us.
وَمَا خَطَّتْهُ كَفٌّ فَهْوَ فَصْلٌ
فَمَا أَغْنَى تَمَنٍّ أَوْ بَرِيقُ
What a hand has written is the final word; no wishing and no glitter is of any use.
وَمَا زَالَ الْيَرَاعُ بِكَفِّ حَيٍّ
فَسِرْ مَا دَامَ مُمْتَدّاً طَرِيقُ
The pen is still in a living hand, so walk on while the road still stretches ahead.
The verses are the author's own; the English below gives their sense in prose.
- 1Go over your paper today, while the pen is in your hand, and do not put off a single item to a time you have no guarantee of.
- 2Take one aspect from the table of the two examinations this week — the seat, or the tools, or how far the watching reaches — and measure your day against it, item by item.
- 3Give people back what is theirs before the folding; putting it right afterwards is not accepted, and the appeal is read out to you in your own hand, not in anyone else's.
- 4Open for yourself a door that does not close when your time closes: an ongoing charity, or knowledge people benefit from, or a righteous child who prays for you (Sahih Muslim 1631).
- 5If you pass on a piece of evidence, tie it to its book and its number, mark off what stops at a Companion from what goes back to the Prophet ﷺ, and do not put on his tongue a wording whose place you have not found.
- 6Read the table after the parts and not before them; then read it again alone on a quiet night, and write beside each aspect what it has to do with you.
The sitting ends where it began: with a bell the man in the seat did not choose. And this conclusion is the announcing of the result: a paper read out to its owner in his own hand, his days set out in a row as they passed and not as he remembers them; no complaint is lodged, there is no resit after the bell, and nobody goes back to his seat. Then two appendices stand after it: a table setting the two halls side by side in twenty aspects — the place, the time, the start, the seat, what goes in with you, the tools, the invigilator, cheating, putting things right, the collecting of the papers, the marker, the scale, the result and the resit — put there to be read after the parts and not before them; and a listing that traces every piece of evidence back to its book, its number and its narrator, and marks off what stops at a Companion from what goes back to the Prophet. And the book closes on one line: as long as the pen is in the hand the paper can be gone over, and after the folding it stays as it is.
Twenty aspects in which the two halls are set side by side. What stands in the left-hand column you have seen with your own eyes; what stands in the right-hand column is its counterpart, and on that counterpart this whole book is built.
| Aspect | The hall you see | The greater hall |
|---|---|---|
| The place | A room with four walls and a door that shuts, and a clock above the board | It has no walls; its ceiling is the sky and its floor is this earth |
| The time | Written at the top of the paper, known to everyone sitting | Known to the One who owns the hall, and not written at the top of the paper |
| The start | A bell is rung, and an invigilator says: begin | A small hoarse cry, and the one who makes it does not know it is a start |
| The seat | A small number in chalk that the candidate did not choose | An age, two parents, a face and a state of health that nobody was consulted about |
| What goes in with you | Two pens and a ruler, with the bag left on a shelf by the door | You go in alone, and everything you leaned on for months stays outside |
| The question paper | It comes down face-down on the desk, and is turned over once | It comes down one at a time in the shape of an ordinary day: money that increases, a friend who lets you down |
| The answer book | Handed out white, and replaced with another if it is ruined | One, with no second, and the door of erasure in it stays open as long as the pen is in the hand |
| The optional questions | "Answer three out of five", and what you cannot do is left with nothing lost | No item is folded away, and the item its owner stepped over stays where it is |
| The tools | Whatever the notice on the wall allows: a pen, a ruler, a simple calculator | Money, health, children, standing and length of life — all left behind whole, then handed in with the paper |
| The invigilator | He grows hungry in the second hour, his eyelids grow heavy after the third, and he is called away to the door | He is not described as present at times, because he was never described as absent at all |
| How far the watching reaches | Whatever shows above the desk, and the movement of a hand when it moves | What the chest planned before the hand reached the sleeve |
| Cheating | Knowing the map of the invigilator's blind moments, and it may work | No map can be drawn, because there is no blind moment to chart |
| Crossing out and putting right | A clean sheet asked for with a raised hand, and minutes lost | Regret, a line through it, a firm resolve, and giving back what belongs to others — as long as there is time left |
| The last bell | It is rung, and you have watched the clock hand come round to it | It is not rung and the hand is not seen; and it falls on a day when nobody is expecting it |
| The collecting of the papers | They are gathered from the back row, and the desk and chair stay where they are | The paper is taken up and the tools are taken up with it, and what you left on the shelf does not leave with you |
| The marker | A human being who tires and slips, and may put the mark down wrong | Not a word said in passing escapes Him, nor a step forgotten the day it was taken |
| The scale | Ink on paper, and a mark is a mark and no more | Good is multiplied in it many times over, and its opposite is written down as one — and the text for this is in the sources of the evidence |
| The result | A sheet behind glass in a corridor, forgotten a week later | Announced once, and after it nobody is sent back to the hall |
| The appeal | A complaint is lodged, and the paper is looked at again by someone other than its marker | The paper is read out to its owner in his own hand, his days set out in a row as they passed and not as he remembers them |
| The resit | A second sitting weeks later, and a whole year done again | There is no resit after the bell, and all the putting right comes before it |