The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
Allah - beginning with the name of - the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
AN INQUIRER ASKED for the affliction that is to come 1 To the disbelievers; of it there is no preventer. 2 From God, the Lord of the steps (of progression), 3 To whom the angels and the soul take a day to ascend, whose length is fifty thousand years. 4 So, (O Prophet), persevere with gracious perseverance. 5 They think that it (the Day of Judgment) is far away. 6 And We behold it nigh. 7 On that Day the heaven shall become like molten copper, 8 and the mountains shall be as plucked wool-tufts, 9 And no friend will ask concerning 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 And his wife and his brother. 12 And his family who had stood by him, 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 That would skin the scalp. 16 It shall insistently summon him who turned his back and retreated, 17 and amassed wealth and covetously hoarded it. 18 ۞ Surely man was created fretful, 19 Fretful when evil touches him; 20 And niggardly when good reaches him;- 21 Except those who establish prayer. 22 Who persevere in devotion, 23 And those in whose riches is a known right. 24 for those that ask and those that are dispossessed, 25 who confirm the Day of Doom 26 who are afraid of the torment of their Lord, 27 for, behold, of their Sustainer's chastisement none may ever feel [wholly] secure; 28 And those who guard their sex except from their wives and women slaves of old 29 except from their wives and slave girls, in which case they 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 stand firm in their testimonies; 33 and are steadfast in their prayers. 34 It is these who will be honoured in Gardens. 35