The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
In the name of God, The Most Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace
Someone has (needlessly) demanded to experience the torment (of God), 1 The infidels, of which there is no averter. 2 From Allah, Owner of the ascending steps. 3 The angels and the Spirit will ascend to Him during a Day the extent of which is fifty thousand years. 4 Therefore be patient, with a beautiful patience; 5 Surely they think it to be far off, 6 but We see it near. 7 On the Day the sky will be like murky oil, 8 and the mountains will be like tufts of wool, 9 And no friend will ask of a friend, 10 Though they shall be made to see one another. Fain would the guilty ransom himself from the torment of that Day by his children. 11 And his spouse and his brother. 12 his kinsmen who gave him refuge (from hardship) 13 And all who are on the earth; so that this might deliver him. 14 By no means! For the raging flames of the fire 15 Flaying off the scalp-skin. 16 Calling: "[O Kafir (O disbeliever in Allah, His angels, His Book, His Messengers, Day of Resurrection and in Al-Qadar (Divine Preordainments), O Mushrik (O polytheist, disbeliever in the Oneness of Allah)] (all) such as turn their backs and turn away their faces (from Faith) [picking and swallowing them up from that great gathering of mankind (on the Day of Resurrection) just as a bird picks up a food-grain from the earth with its beak and swallows it up] [Tafsir Al-Qurtubi, Vol. 18, Page 289] 17 and amass [wealth] and thereupon withhold [it from their fellow-men]. 18 ۞ VERILY, man is born with a restless disposition. 19 Irritable (discontented) when evil touches him; 20 And when good toucheth him he is begrudging. 21 Not so those devoted to Prayer;- 22 Who persevere in devotion, 23 And those in whose wealth is a recognised right. 24 For the needy and those dispossessed, 25 And those who hold to the truth of the Day of Judgment; 26 And those who are fearful of the punishment of their Lord - 27 For their Lord's displeasure is the opposite of Peace and Tranquillity;- 28 And those who preserve their chastity 29 Except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed, they are not to be blamed - 30 but any who seeks to go beyond that, it is indeed they who are the transgressors, 31 And those who of their trusts and their covenant are keepers. 32 and standby their witnessing, 33 And those who keep a guard on their prayer, 34 These it is who in the gardens [of paradise] shall be honoured! 35