Imam Ali (peace be upon him): In response to someone who claimed there was a contradiction between the verses of the Quran and said: "I find Allah [in the Quran] saying: 'The Day when the Rūḥ (Spirit) and the angels stand in one row, none shall speak except one whom the Most Merciful permits, and he speaks what is right' (Naba'/38). And [yet] elsewhere He has said: they are questioned and they say: وَ اللهِ رَبِّنا ما کُنَّا مُشْرِکِینَ [By Allah, our Lord, we were not polytheists]." The Imam (peace be upon him) replied that this is at different halting-places [of the Resurrection], not at a single halting-place among the halting-places of that Day whose measure is fifty thousand years (Ma'arij/4). Allah the Mighty and Majestic on that Day will gather the creatures at halting-places where they will disperse, and some of them will speak with others, and some of them will seek forgiveness for others — these are the leaders and followers who obeyed [Allah] in the abode of the world. And the sinners will curse [one another] and disown one another and curse one another. Then they will be gathered at another halting-place, where they will be questioned and where they will weep; and if those voices were made apparent to the people of the world, all creatures would be diverted from their livelihoods and their hearts would split apart, except those whom Allah wills; so they will continuously weep blood. Then they will be gathered at another halting-place and questioned there; so they will say: وَ اللهِ رَبِّنا ما کُنَّا مُشْرِکِینَ [By Allah, our Lord, we were not polytheists]. As a result, Allah, Blessed and Exalted, will seal their mouths and question their hands and feet and skins, and they will bear witness to all the sins they have committed. Then He will lift the seal from their tongues, and they will say to their skins: 'Why did you testify against us?' They will reply: 'The same Allah who has caused every being to speak has made us speak' (Fussilat/21)."