Surah Az-Zumar [The Troops] - Verses 61-75: "Between Fear and Hope"

Surah Az-Zumar [The Troops]
Verses: 61-75
Recitation by Shaykh Younes Souilas

This chapter, and these verses in particular, have special importance to me. After compiling this video, I played it for my mother to get her thoughts on it. However, she began to weep as she listened to it. I asked her about this, and she had said that these are the exact verses her father would have her recite to him while he was on his deathbed. She became a hafidha of the Qur'an at the age of 9.

These verses detail the final parts of the journey of the soul following its resurrection in the physical body upon the dying Earth. All souls are like moths driven to a light, or a flame, making their Hajj pilgrimage along the Planes of Arafat towards the appointed meeting place. As the barrier between the material world and the immaterial world has all but vanished, forms that emanate from the imaginal realm now manifest with concreteness in whatever is left of this world. Their often paranormal descriptions convey the state of one's soul. The angels manifest, dragging those who bear the mark of those cursed by the defilement of sin. Phenomena that were once considered as purely metaphysical, such as the book of deeds, now appear in this new universe whose laws, just like its physical structure, have begun to fall into disarray.

Following the journey of the soul in this period of the Day of Judgement, the day on which there is no protection except the protection of God, the souls are separated into two groups. As the world returns to the dimension of principles, which are pure, the good and the bad are separated necessarily. The purified souls that embody goodness and light cannot mix, by principle, with the corrupted souls that embody evil and darkness. These souls, each group, begins to travel separate paths; the prior group travels the ascending path, upwardly along the ladder of Being towards the light of closeness to God while the latter group travels the descending path, downwards along the ladder of Being towards the darkness of distance from God.

It is reported in a hadith that the Prophet ﷺ said that Allah had revealed, “By My Glory, I will not bring for my servant two times of fear and two times of protection; if he fears Me in this world I will protect him on the Day of Resurrection, but if he felt safe from Me in the world I will cause him to fear Me in the Hereafter.”

This chapter is characterized by the principle of duality. There is the contrast between good and evil, purity and impurity, hope and fear. There is success and failure as the potential outcomes of each soul's state. It is a chapter that emphasizes the duality of the state of hope and fear, contrasting them in order to cause a third state that manifests within the hearts of those who take heed. This third state is called faith [iman]. Hope and fear are like two fundamental elements that when mixed, causes a third ethereal element to arise.

Ibn al-Qayyim says, “The heart on its path to Allah the Almighty is like a bird, where love is its head, and fear and hope are its wings.”

Hope and fear, rooted in the metaphysical rather than the physical, represent the two motivating factors that drive the intention and the will. When oriented around true belief ['aqida], which manifests as love for Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, then the soul strives upwardly towards Allah, even passing through the paradisal realms. But when intention and will are oriented around false belief, clothed in the lower desires of the false self, which are constantly being instigated and taken advantage of by the demons, then one's intention and will propel one downwards into the demonic realms.

Sultan al-Awliya, Shaykh Abdal Qadir al-Jilani ع said, "There is no spiritual state nor any spiritual station but has fear and hope attached to it. These two are like two wings of a bird but for which no flight can be perfect. And this is true of every state and station. With this much of difference that every state has its corresponding fear and hope."

The Prophet ﷺ said, “A believer will be brought close to his Lord on the Day of Resurrection and (He will) envelop him in His Mercy, He will make him confess to his sins saying: `Do you remember (doing) this sin and that sin?' He will reply: ‘My Lord, I remember.’ Then He will say: ‘I covered it for you in the worldly life, and I forgive you for it today.’ Then the record of his good deeds will be handed to him.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ also said, “He who loves to meet Allah, Allah loves to meet him; and he who dislikes to meet Allah, Allah abhors to meet him.” [Muslim]

This love or abhorrence of Allah defines the ontological nature of one's own Being and the state of one's soul. The prior represents a purified soul, who has returned to their fitra while latter represents a polluted soul who has become alienated from their fitra.