The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
ONE who is minded to ask might ask about the suffering which [in the hereafter] is bound to befall 1 for the unbelievers, which none may avert, 2 From God, the Lord of the steps (of progression), 3 On that Day (of Judgment), long as fifty thousand years, the angels and the Spirit will ascend to Him. 4 But be patient (O Muhammad) with a patience fair to see. 5 They see the (Day) indeed as a far-off (event): 6 And We behold it nigh. 7 The Day that the sky will be like the boiling filth of oil, (or molten copper or silver or lead, etc.). 8 And the mountains shall be as tufts of wool 9 And no friend will ask [anything of] a 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 and his brother, 12 the kinsmen who gave him shelter, 13 And all that are in the earth, if then it might deliver him. 14 Nay, verily it is a furnace 15 That would skin the scalp. 16 and drag into it anyone who has turned away (from obeying God), 17 and amass [wealth] and thereupon withhold [it from their fellow-men]. 18 ۞ Truly man was created very impatient;- 19 Being greatly grieved when evil afflicts him 20 And niggardly when good befalls him 21 Except those devoted to Salat (prayers) 22 Those who are constant in their prayer 23 And those in whose riches is a known right. 24 For the petitioner and the deprived - 25 And those who believe in the Day of Judgement, 26 and are fearful of the punishment of their Lord; 27 for none is secure from the punishment of their Lord, 28 who guard their carnal desires 29 except in regard to their spouses and those whom their right hands possess, for in regard to them they are not reproachable, 30 But those who seek more than this will be transgressors; 31 and those who fulfil their trusts and their covenants, 32 and perform their witnessings, 33 And those who protect their prayers. 34 Those shall be in Gardens, high-honoured. 35