Surah Saba' 34:52
ﱨ ﱩ ﱪ ﱫ ﱬ ﱭ ﱮ ﱯ ﱰ
And they will [then] say, "We believe in it!" But how for them will be the taking [of faith] from a place far away?
Tafsir of Saba' 34:52
Tafsir
Mafatih al-Ghayb
Verse range: 34:52
Surah Saba' (34): Verse 52
And they will say, "We have believed in it..."
Meaning, after the matter (the Day of Judgment) has manifested, when belief is no longer beneficial. They will say, "We have believed."
"...But how will they attain (belief/salvation) from a distant place?"
How can they achieve what is sought (belief or salvation)? This is only possible in the worldly life. In the Hereafter, the world is far removed from them.
If one asks: How is it that in many places the Qur'an states that the Hereafter is near to the world (e.g., *“The Hour is near”* [Ash-Shura: 17]), yet here the world is described as being far?
We reply: The past (the world that has passed) is like the bygone yesterday; it is unreachable. However, the future, even if years separate it from the present, is coming. Therefore, the Day of Judgment is distant because it has passed (from the perspective of the dwellers of the Hereafter), but in the worldly life, the Day of Judgment is near because it is coming.
*Al-Tanawush* (attaining/reaching) means grasping something nearby. Some scholars say it means grasping from afar. Since God made the action (the verb) analogous to a physical object, He made the container of the action (time) analogous to the container of the object (place), saying: **"...from a distant place."** What is meant here is the world that has already passed.
"And they had already disbelieved in it before, and they used to hurl [accusations] of the unseen from a distant place."