The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
Allah - beginning with the name of - the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
A supplicant asked for a punishment bound to happen 1 Upon the disbelievers, which none can avert, 2 From Allah, Lord of the Ascending Stairways 3 To Him the angels and the Spirit mount up, in a day whereof the measure is fifty thousand years. 4 Therefore, [O believers] behave with seemly patience. 5 Indeed, they see it [as] distant, 6 but We see it is nigh. 7 On the Day the sky will be like murky oil, 8 And the hills become as flakes of wool, 9 and no friend will ask about his 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 wife and his brother 12 and of all the kinsfolk who ever sheltered him, 13 And all that are in the earth, so that it might save him. 14 By no means! Surely it is a flaming fire 15 Flaying off the scalp-skin. 16 calling him who drew back and turned away, 17 and amassed wealth and hoarded it. 18 ۞ Verily man is impatient by nature: 19 Irritable (discontented) when evil touches him; 20 And, when good befalleth him, grudging; 21 Not so are the prayerful. 22 who are constant in prayer; 23 And those in whose wealth there is a known right, 24 for the needy and the deprived, 25 And those who believe in the Day of Recompense, 26 And those who fear the displeasure of their Lord,- 27 Lo! the doom of their Lord is that before which none can feel secure - 28 who guard their carnal desires 29 except from their wives and slave girls, in which case they are not to be blamed, 30 But whosoever seeks beyond that, they are the transgressors. 31 And those who keep their trusts and covenants; 32 and who stand firm whenever they bear witness; 33 and (finally) those who do not miss their ritual - prayers at the prescribed times; 34 It is these who will be honoured in Gardens. 35