The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
AN INQUIRER ASKED for the affliction that is to come 1 Upon the infidels -- which none would be able to repel -- 2 from punishing them. He is the Lord of the Ascending Stairways, 3 To Him ascend the angels and the Spirit in a day the measure of which is fifty thousand years. 4 Therefore, [O believer,] endure all adversity with goodly patience: 5 behold, men look upon that [reckoning] as something far away 6 But We see it [as] near. 7 The Day that the sky will be like molten brass, 8 and the mountains will become like dyed tufts of wool, 9 and [when] no friend will ask about his friend, 10 Though they will be given sight of them. The guilty man will long to be able to ransom himself from the punishment of that day at the price of his children 11 his wife, his brother, 12 And the family in which he was. 13 and of whoever [else] lives on earth, all of them - so that he could but save himself. 14 Nay, verily it is a furnace 15 Flaying off the scalp-skin. 16 It will summon whoever turns his back and flees, 17 and amassed (riches) and hoarded. 18 ۞ Truly man was created very impatient;- 19 When evil comes upon him he is impatient; 20 and whenever good fortune comes to him, he grows niggardly. 21 save those that pray 22 Those who are constant at their prayer 23 And those within whose wealth is a known right 24 to those who ask [for help] and to the destitute; 25 And those who believe the Day of Judgement to be true. 26 And those who fear the displeasure of their Lord,- 27 For their Lord's displeasure is the opposite of Peace and Tranquillity;- 28 who guard their privates 29 Except in the case of their wives or those whom their right hands possess-- for these surely are not to be blamed, 30 But he who seeks to go beyond this, these it is that go beyond the limits-- 31 and those who fulfil their trusts and their covenants, 32 And those who are in their testimonies upright 33 and who guard their prayers [from all worldly intent]. 34 Such will be the honoured ones in the Gardens (of Bliss). 35