al-Baqara 2:94-96 — The test of the claim

"Say: If the abode of the hereafter with God is yours alone and not for other people, then wish for death — if you are truthful. But they will never wish for it, because of what their hands have done."

Here the sūra proposes a test, and the logic of the test is flawless.

The claim was: the hereafter belongs to us, the fire will touch us for a counted number of days (2/80). If that is true, then death is not a loss but a gain — waiting is wearisome for one whose waiting is for something good. They should therefore wish for death.

And the answer is given: "they will never wish for it."

The method here resembles a method we meet at several points in this commentary: testing by conduct a claim advanced in words. Sūrat al-Māʿūn gave treatment of the orphan as the proof of denying the religion; here the attitude towards death is given as the proof of the claim about the hereafter. In both, the measure is looked for not in the declaration but in the deed.

وَلَتَجِدَنَّهُمْ أَحْرَصَ ٱلنَّاسِ عَلَىٰ حَيَوٰةٍ — "you will find them the greediest of people for life". And a striking detail follows: "each of them would like to live a thousand years."

The figure a thousand years matters. What is wanted is not immortality — that is already known to be impossible. What is wanted is the longest of what is possible. The demand, that is, is made by a realistic calculation: the greatest span that can be held on to.

This measures exactly the distance between claim and condition. A person may say he believes in the hereafter and may even be sincere in it; but the force of his clinging to life shows where his belief is lodged. The verse does not call anyone's word a lie; it sets the word beside the conduct.

And this measure joins with verse 62 at the head of the section: belonging does not save, and neither does a claim. The only thing left is whether faith and deed hold together.