Sanafrughu lakum ayyuha aththaqalan (surah Rahman: 31)

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

(55:31) O you twain, who are a burden (on the earth), *29 We shall attend to you and call you to account. *30

Sanafrughu lakum ayyuhas saqalaan

*29) Thaqalan is derived from thiql which means a burden, and thaqal is the burden loaded on a conveyance. Thaqalan (dual) therefore would mean: "two loaded burdens". Here this word refers to the jinn and then; who are both loaded on the earth. As the addressees here are those jinn and men who have turned away from the service and obedience of their Lord and Sustainer, they have been addressed as: "0 burdens of the earth," In other words, the Creator is warning these two unworthy groups of His creation, saying; "' you who have become a burden for My earth, I am soon going to take you to task,"
*30) This dces not mean that AIIah at this time is too busy to call the disobedient servants to account, but it means that AIIah has arranged a special time-table according to which He will first bring into existence generation after generation of the jinn and men in the world till an appointed time, and will provide theist with an opportunity to work in this examination centre of the world; then at a specific Hour the examination will be suddenly brought to a close, and alI the jinn and men living at that time will be given death simultaneously. Then at another time which is preordained with Allah for calling the jinn and men to account, all the former and the latter generations of both the species will be resurrected and mustered at one and the same time. In view of this time-table the two species have been warned, as if to say: `We are yet busy with the work of the first period, and the time for the second period has not yet come, not to speak of embarking on the work of the third period. But you may rest assured. The time is fast approaching when We shall be free to take you to task." This lack of leisure does not mean that AIIah is too occupied with one kind of work to attend to another kind of work. But its nature is analogous to the occupation of a person who has set a time-table for different sorts of the works and in respect of a work whose time has not yet arrived according to the time-table, he may say that he at the moment is not free for it.