Wayawma taqoomu assaAAatu yawma-ithin yatafarraqoon (surah Rum: 14)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(30:14) On that Day when the Hour will come to pass, people will be split into groups. *18

Wa Yawma taqoomus Saa`atu Yawma`iziny yatafarraqoon

*18) That is, "All communities and groups that have been formed in the world on the basis of race, country, language, tribe and clan, and economic and political interests, will break, and the people will be re-grouped on the basis of true belief, morality and character. On the one hand, all the believing and righteous people will be separated froth all the nations of mankind and put in one group, and on the other, people professing every false ideology and committing every kind of crime in the world will be sorted out severally from the multitudes of mankind and put into separate groups. In other words, the thing which Islam regards as the real basis of separation and union in the world and which the worshippers of ignorance refuse to accept, will become the basis of separation and union in the Hereafter. Islam says that the real thing which joins men together or divides them is the belief and morality. Those who believe and build the system of life on Divine guidance are one community, whether they belong to any race, any country and any region. The two cannot belong to one nation. They can neither walk together on a common path of life in the world, nor can meet with the same end in the Hereafter. Froth the world to the Hereafter they tread separate paths and have separate destinations. Contrary to this, the worshippers of falsehood have heen insisting in every age, and still insist, that mankind should be classified and grouped on the bases of race and country and language. The people who have a common race and country and language should constitute a separate nation, regardless of their religion and belief, and should offer a common front against the other similar nations. And this nation should have such a system of life which should bind the followers of Tauhid and the polytheists and the atheists together: The same was the concept of Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab and the chiefs of the Quraish. That is why they accused the Holy Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's peace he upon him) again and again of having stirred up divisions in their nation. That is why the Qur'an is warning that the groups made in the world on wrong bases will ultimately break and mankind will be permanently divided on the basis of the belief and the philosophy of life and morality and character on which Islam wants to build it in the world. The people who do not have a common destination cannot follow a common way of life.