Matthew 16:27 Meaning For the Son of Man Will Come

Tajallī: God showing himself Al-Ghazali and Ibn Arabi both use this word for the moment the covering comes off and the light is plain. Right now the person doing the harder thing gets no sign that anything is watching, and the cost is all they can feel. Holding on becomes possible when someone trusts that the quiet stretch ends and what was hidden shows itself in full.

Kirāman Kātibīn: The noble recorders The Quran describes angels who write down what a person does. A kindness no one saw can feel wasted, and a small meanness no one caught can feel free. Both feelings assume other people keep the only count, and the private hours weigh as much as the public ones.

Actions are judged by their intentions: the reason inside the act is what counts A saying of the Prophet, and the whole tradition builds on it. Once a person hears that deeds get repaid, the temptation is to start collecting them, doing more and bigger things. Two people can do the same act and come away with different things, because one wanted to help and the other wanted credit.

Ikhlāṣ: Sincerity Al-Ghazali gives a whole book of the Revival to doing a thing for one reason only. When a reward gets named, a person can quietly start working for the wrong audience: the neighbors, the reputation, the story told later. Sincerity shows in whether the act would look the same if no one ever found out about it.

Take account of yourself before you are taken to account: the reckoning moved up to today Early Muslims said this, and al-Ghazali built his chapter on self-examination around it. A reckoning far off in the future has almost no grip on how a person acts on a Tuesday afternoon. Going honestly back through a single day, each night, brings that weighing close enough to change what happens tomorrow.