The Quran

Preface

يَومَ يَقولُ المُنافِقونَ وَالمُنافِقاتُ لِلَّذينَ آمَنُوا انظُرونا نَقتَبِس مِن نورِكُم قيلَ ارجِعوا وَراءَكُم فَالتَمِسوا نورًا فَضُرِبَ بَينَهُم بِسورٍ لَهُ بابٌ باطِنُهُ فيهِ الرَّحمَةُ وَظاهِرُهُ مِن قِبَلِهِ العَذابُ

Yusuf Ali

One Day will the Hypocrites- men and women - say to the Believers: “Wait for us! Let us borrow (a Light) from your Light!”¹ It will be said: “Turn ye back to your rear! then seek a Light (where ye can)!” So a wall² will be put up betwixt them, with a gate therein. Within it will be Mercy throughout, and without it, all alongside, will be (Wrath and) Punishment!

Watchful preparation in Life, and the light of Faith, which reflects the divine Light, are matters of personal Life, and cannot be borrowed from another. So, in Christ’s parable of the Ten Virgins (Matt. 25:1-13), when the foolish ones had let their lamps go out for want of oil, they asked to borrow oil from the wise ones, but the wise ones answered and said, “Not so; ... but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves”.
The wall of Personality, or Record of Deeds, will divide the Good from the Evil. But the Gateway in it will show that communication will not be cut off. Evil must realise that Good-i.e., Mercy and Felicity-had been within its reach, and that the Wrath which envelops it is due to its own rejection of Mercy.