The Quran

Preface

وَهُوَ الَّذي يَتَوَفّاكُم بِاللَّيلِ وَيَعلَمُ ما جَرَحتُم بِالنَّهارِ ثُمَّ يَبعَثُكُم فيهِ لِيُقضىٰ أَجَلٌ مُسَمًّى ۖ ثُمَّ إِلَيهِ مَرجِعُكُم ثُمَّ يُنَبِّئُكُم بِما كُنتُم تَعمَلونَ

Yusuf Ali

It is He who doth take your souls by night, and hath knowledge of all that ye have done by day: by day doth He raise you up again; that a term appointed be fulfilled; In the end unto Him will be your return;¹ then will He show you the truth of all that ye did.

As the rest of His Creation is subject to His Law and Plan, so is man’s life in every particular and at every moment, awake or asleep. The mystery of Sleep-"the twin brother of death”-is called the taking of our soul by Him, with the record of all we have done in our waking moments, and this record sometimes appears to us in confused glimpses in dreams. By day we awaken again to our activities, and so it goes on until we fulfil the term of our life appointed for this earth. Then comes the other Sleep (death), with the longer record of our Day (life); and then, in the end comes the Resurrection and Judgment, at which we see everything clearly and not as in dreams, for that is the final Reality (Cf. 39:42)