One of the ways by which we judge the power of an individual is by considering what they own or possess. However, no matter how much a person owns in this world, their ownership and possession is limited. In the Qur’an, Allah ﷻ describes Himself as the “Owner of the Day of Retribution”. Allah ﷻ owns everything in existence, yet, in the Qur’an’s first chapter, He specifies the ownership of one thing, the Day of Resurrection, in particular. One reason for this is to signify the magnitude of ownership He will have on that day — despite the various things people owned and possessed in the life before, no one will own anything on the Day of Resurrection, except Allah ﷻ. Another reason for this is to signify the exclusivity of ownership of the Day of Resurrection — no one except Allah ﷻ is in charge of this day. When humanity will be resurrected, it will be in a state of utter panic due to the reality they will be facing: every single one of us will have to stand before Allah ﷻ and answer for our deeds, and nothing will be hidden from Him. On that day, Allah ﷻ could potentially go through every page of our book of deeds in thorough detail, which would be excruciating. Or, out of His mercy, He could overlook our book of deeds, forgive us, and allow us to enter Paradise without account. Our hope should be in latter, and this is something we should pray for, as the Prophet ﷺ himself prayed for, by frequently asking: “Oh Allah, grant me an easy accounting.”
