Companions of the Holy Prophet; in other words, al-sā‘ah in this case signifies the passing away of the generation of the Companions. There are examples of this use in the Holy Qur’ān also: “The hour (al-sā‘ah) drew nigh and the moon was rent asunder” (54:1). “The hour,” in this case, stands for the doom of the opponents of the Holy Prophet. And again: “Or say they, We are a host allied together to help each other. Soon shall the hosts be routed, and they will show their backs. Nay, the Hour (al-sā‘ah) is their promised time and the hour is most grievous and bitter” (54:44-46). Bukhārī tells us, in his comment on these verses, that, when the Holy Prophet was faced with a most serious situation on the day of the battle of Badr, the Muslims being in danger of utter annihilation at the hands of their powerful opponents, and was praying for their safety, he was reminded of this prophecy, and comforted his Companions by reciting these verses aloud,5 showing that the hour (al-sā‘ah) here meant the hour of the enemy’s defeat.
Just as the word al-sā‘ah is used in a wider sense, and indicates, besides the Doomsday, sometimes the death of an individual and sometimes the passing of a generation, so do the words qiyāma (rising) and ba‘th (raising the dead to life) sometimes occur, each in a wider sense. Thus there is a saying of the Holy Prophet: “Whoever dies, his resurrection had indeed come to pass.”6 Here the state of barzakh is called a resurrection, and this shows that no sooner does a man die than he is raised to a new life. It should be further borne in mind that on many occasions when the Holy Qur’ān speaks of the dead, it means those who are spiritually dead, and by giving life to them it means the bringing about of a spiritual awakening in them, as for example: “Is he who was dead, then We raised him to life and made for him a light by which he walks among the people, like him whose likeness is that of one in darkness whence he cannot come forth?” (6:122). Here, clearly, the dead one is he who is spiritually dead, and God’s raising him to life is giving him the life spiritual. On one occasion even, by “those in the graves” are meant those who are dead spiritually: “Neither are the living and the dead alike. Surely Allāh makes whom He pleases hear, and thou canst not make those hear who are in the
5 Bu. 64:4.
6 MM. 26:7.