The Scales

[ابوالوليد المسلم]

The Scales (4)

‘Abdullah ibn Hamoud al-Furaih

The Scales (4)

is there one scale or many scales?
The verses that mention the scales in them came as a group. Among them, His words Almighty:

{وَنَضَعُ الْمَوَازِينَ الْقِسْطَ لِيَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ}

“And We place the scales of justice for the Day of Resurrection” [Al Anbiya: 47]

The word for the scales came as a singular (word) in the Sunnah such as in the previous Hadith: “By the One in Whose hand is my soul, they will weigh more heavily in the Balance than Mount Uhud”:

So are they one scale or many scales?
Our Sheikh Ibn Othaimeen (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “the scholars differed; are the scales one or many?”

Some of them said: many based on the communities, people or deeds, because in the Qur'an they were not mentioned except in plural. As for its singular (word) in the Hadith, that is based on the gender (of the word). Some of them said: it is one scale because it was mentioned in the Hadith as a singular. As for being plural in the Qur'an, that is based on what is being weighed. Either of the two issues can be expected. Allah knows best