23. What is meant to be said hare is: When they will be rounded up to be presented in the Court of Allah, though the words used are to the effect: When they will be gathered to be driven to Fire of Hell, for Hell in any case will be their final destination.

24. That is, All the former and latter generations and races will be gathered together at a time and called to account together. For, whatever a person does in his lifetime, whether good or evil, its influence and impact does not end with his life but continues to operate even after his death for long periods of time, for which he is totally responsible. Likewise, whatever a generation does in its own time, its influence continues to affect the later generations for centuries, and it is responsible for its heritage. It is inevitable to examine all these influences and their results and to collect their evidences. For that very reason, generation after generation of the people will go on arriving and will be withheld. The court will start its work when all the former and latter generations will have assembled together in the Plain of Resurrection. (For further explanation, see( Surah Al-Aaraf, Ayats 38-39 and E.N. 30) on it.

25. The explanation of this given in the Hadith is that when a stubborn culprit will go on denying his crimes, and will even belie all the witnesses, then the limbs of his body will bear the witness, one after the other, by the command of Allah, and will tell what offenses he had committed through them. This thing has been reported by Anas, Abu Musa Ashari, Abu Said Khudri and Ibn Abbas from the Prophet (peace be upon him), and traditionists like Muslim, Nasai, Ibn Jarir, Ibn Abi Hatim, Bazzar and others have related these in their books. (For further explanation, see (E.N. 55 of Surah YaSeen).

This verse is one of those many verses which prove that the Hereafter will not only be a spiritual world but human beings will be resurrected with the body and soul as they are now in this world. Not only this: they will be given the same body in which they live now. The same particles and atoms which composed their bodies in the world will be collected on the Day of Resurrection, and they will be resurrected with the same previous bodies in which they had lived and worked in the world. Evidently, the limbs of man can bear the witness in the Hereafter only in case they are the same limbs with which he committed a crime in his previous life. This subject is borne out decisively and absolutely by the following verses of the Quran: (Surah Bani-Israil, Ayats 49-51, 98); (Surah Al-Muminun, Ayats 35- 38, (82-83); (Surah An-Noor, Ayat 24); (Surah As-Sajdah, Ayat 10); (Surah YaSeen, Ayats 65, 78, 79); (Surah As-Saafat, Ayats 16-18); (Surah Al-Waqiah, Ayats 47-50); (Surah An-Naziat, Ayats 10-14).

26. This shows that not only man’s own limbs will bear witness on the Day of Resurrection, but every such thing before which man would have committed any crime will also speak out. The same thing has been said in Surah Al- Zilzal, thus: The earth will cast out all the burdens, which lie within it, and man will say: what has befallen it? On that Day shall it relate whatever had happened (on it), because your Lord will have commanded it (to do so). (verses 2-5).