The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
A doubter once demanded that punishment be immediately meted out, 1 The Unbelievers, the which there is none to ward off,- 2 From God, the Lord of the steps (of progression), 3 by which the angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in one Day the duration of which is fifty thousand years. 4 So be thou patient with a sweet patience; 5 They surely take it to be far away, 6 while We think that it is near at hand. 7 On that Day the heaven shall become like molten copper, 8 And the mountains will be like wool, 9 And no friend inquires after friend 10 though they may be in one another's sight: [for,] everyone who was lost in sin will on that Day but desire to ransom himself from suffering at the price of his own children, 11 And his wife and his brother, 12 and his kinsfolk who had stood by him, 13 and whosoever is in the earth, altogether, so that it might save him. 14 But never. It is pure white flame 15 That would skin the scalp. 16 Inviting (all) such as turn their backs and turn away their faces (from the Right). 17 and amass [wealth] and thereupon withhold [it from their fellow-men]. 18 ۞ Indeed, man is born impatient: 19 If evil befalls him he is perturbed; 20 And, when good befalleth him, grudging; 21 Not so those devoted to Prayer;- 22 and are constant in their Prayer; 23 In whose wealth a due share is included 24 for those that ask and those that are dispossessed, 25 And those who believe in the Day of Judgment, 26 And those who are fearful of their Lord's torment 27 the punishment of their Lord is not something for them to feel secure of, 28 And those who guard their sex except from their wives and women slaves of old 29 Save with their wives and those whom their right hands possess, for thus they are not blameworthy; 30 but any who seeks to go beyond that, it is indeed they who are the transgressors, 31 and those who fulfil their trusts and their covenants, 32 And those who stand firm in their testimonies; 33 And those who [carefully] maintain their prayer: 34 all these shall live honourably in the Gardens. 35