Surah Az-Zalzalah

Introduction

It is also called Surah Idha Zulzilat. It is Meccan according to Ibn Abbas, Mujahid, and Ata; and Medinan according to Qatadah and Muqatil. In Al-Itqan, it is argued that it is Medinan based on what Ibn Abi Hatim recorded from Abu Sa’id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: "When ‘So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it’ was revealed, I said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, will I really see my deeds?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘The great ones?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘The small ones?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘And my mother will be reckoned?’ He said: ‘Rejoice, O Abu Sa’id, for a single good deed is worth ten times its like.’" (The Hadith). Abu Sa’id was only in Medina, and he did not reach the age of maturity until after the Battle of Uhud.

Its verses are eight in the Kufan and the first Medinan count, and nine in the others. It is authentic in a Hadith narrated by Al-Tirmidhi, Al-Bayhaqi, and others, attributed to Ibn Abbas, that: "Idha Zulzilat is equal to half of the Quran." Another Hadith mentions it is a fourth. The explanation for the first claim is that the rulings of the Quran are divided into worldly rulings and afterlife rulings; this Surah contains the rulings of the afterlife in summary, and it exceeds Al-Qari’ah by mentioning the bringing forth of burdens and the reporting of the news by the earth. Regarding the second claim (that it is a fourth), it is because the belief in the Resurrection, which this Surah establishes, is one-fourth of faith, as stated in the Hadith narrated by Al-Tirmidhi: "No servant believes until he believes in four: bearing witness that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah sent with the truth, believing in death, believing in the Resurrection after death, and believing in the Decree."

What pertains to this station will come, God willing. It is as if when He, the Almighty, mentioned the reward of the two groups—the believers and the disbelievers—in the previous Surah, it acted as a prompt for the question regarding its timing. Thus, He, the Almighty, began this Surah by saying...

"When the earth is shaken with its [final] earthquake,"

That is, when it is moved with a violent, successive, and repeated movement. "Its earthquake" refers to the specific earthquake designated for it, which is necessitated by the Divine Will according to the requirements of profound wisdom. It is the intense quake after which there is no other, such that all others are not considered earthquakes in comparison to it; or it is its extraordinary earthquake, the magnitude of which cannot be estimated. In both interpretations, the genitive construction (idafah) denotes a specific reference (‘ahd).

It is also permissible that the meaning intended is universality (istighraq), for "its earthquake" is a verbal noun (masdar) in a genitive construction, thereby encompassing its entire shaking. This is a conventional universality intended for hyperbole, and it is what is meant by those who say it refers to "any earthquake of it that falls within the realm of possibility," or perhaps they also intended the specific reference by that.

Al-Jahdari and ‘Isa recited zalzalaha with a fatha (vowel 'a') on the za'. According to Ibn ‘Atiyyah, this is a verbal noun like zilzal with a kasra (vowel 'i'). Al-Zamakhshari stated that the form with the kasra is the verbal noun, while the form with the fatha is a noun for the known movement; it is put in the accusative case here as a verbal noun metaphorically, as it functions in the place of the verbal noun. He further added that there are no structures in the pattern fi‘lan with a fatha except in doubled roots (muḍa‘af). They mentioned that both fatha and kasra are permissible in this, except that the dominant usage when it is opened (fatha) is that it carries the meaning of an active participle (ism fa‘il), such as salsal (meaning musalsil—clinking) and qaḍqaḍ (meaning muqaḍqiḍ—cracking). According to Ibn Malik, it is not a verbal noun. As for non-doubled roots, it is only heard rarely, whether it is an adjective or a concrete noun. Bahram and Bastam are Arabized if it is held that the fatha in them is correct. Among the rare instances is khur‘al (with two dotted letters), which is a she-camel afflicted with lameness, and some have not established any others besides it. Tha‘lab added qahqaz, which is a hard stone; some say it is a plural, and some say it is a weak dialect, while the eloquent form is qahqar with a doubled ra'. Another added qastal, which is dust.

This earthquake—according to what a group has held—is at the time of the second trumpet blast, due to the saying of the Exalted: [...]