• If you were to ask: Allâh is always the owner of everything, so why is the Day of Requital specified?

You would be told: It is specified in order to indicate that apparent causes, which Allâh has put in the world of change to demonstrate His sublimity - lest the direct functioning of the Hand of Power be seen by the mind's eye in matters that appear to be lowly in their outward (mulk) aspect, will be raised on that day, and their inner aspect (malakûtiyya) will be manifested clearly and transparently. Then all things will see and know their Lord and Maker without intermediary.

And in the term "the Day (al-yawm)" is an allusion to one of the conjectural signs of the resurrection, related to the evident correspondence between a day and a year, and the life of man and the cycle of the earth. So it is between the hands of a clock that count the seconds, the minutes, the hours, and the days. Thus, the person who sees that one hand has completed its revolution will surmise that the others will complete their revolutions too, even if with delay. Similarly, the person who sees the repeated resurrections of the species in the examples of the day and the year will surmise that the spring of eternal felicity will be born on the morning of the Day of Resurrection for mankind, one individual of which is like a species.

What is meant by "al-Din" is either requital, that is, the day of requital for good deeds and bad, or of the truths of religion; that is, the day they will rise and be totally manifested, and the sphere of belief will prevail over the sphere of causes. For by relating causes to effects, Allâh has deposited an order in the universe through His will, and obliged man through his nature, illusions, and imagination, to comply with the order and be bound to it. Moreover, He directed all things towards Himself and is far above the effect of the causes in His dominions (mulk). He charged man in belief and faith, to comply with this sphere with his conscience and his spirit, and be bound to it. For in this world, the sphere of causes predominates over the sphere of belief, while in the next world the truths of belief will be manifested as supreme over the sphere of causes.

Know too that each of the two spheres has its appointed position and particular rules, so each should be given its due. Thus, the person who looks from the position of the causal world with his nature, delusions, and imagination, and the criteria of causes towards the sphere of belief is forced to be Mu'tazilite, while a person who looks from the position of belief and its criteria with his spirit and conscience towards the sphere of causes will end up displaying a lazy sort of trust and obstinate opposition to the will of the Orderer.¹


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¹ This refers to the Jabriyya (Predestinationists).