The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
A doubter once demanded that punishment be immediately meted out, 1 for the unbelievers, which none may avert, 2 from punishing them. He is the Lord of the Ascending Stairways, 3 The angels and the Spirit will ascend to Him during a Day the extent of which is fifty thousand years. 4 Therefore, [O believers] behave with seemly patience. 5 Indeed, they see it [as] distant, 6 While we behold it nigh: 7 On that Day the heaven shall become like molten copper, 8 And the hills become as flakes of wool, 9 even intimate friends will not inquire about their friends, 10 although they shall be within sight of one another. The guilty one would fain ransom himself from the torment of that Day by offering his children, 11 his wife, his brother, 12 And his nearest kindred who shelter him 13 and all the people of the earth, if that could deliver him. 14 No, in truth, it is a Furnace! 15 Taking away (burning completely) the head skin! 16 and it shall call him who withdrew and turned his back 17 and amassed wealth and hoarded it. 18 ۞ Indeed, man is born impatient: 19 When they are afflicted, they complain, 20 And, when good befalleth him, grudging; 21 Except those who establish prayer. 22 Those who remain constant in their Salat (prayers); 23 And those in whose wealth exists a recognised right, 24 for those that ask and those that are dispossessed, 25 And those who believe in the Day of Recompense, 26 And those who are fearful of the punishment of their Lord - 27 Lo! the doom of their Lord is that before which none can feel secure - 28 And those who guard their sex except from their wives and women slaves of old 29 except from their spouses and those whom they rightfully possess [through wedlock], for which they incur no blame -- 30 But whoso seeketh more than that, those are they who are transgressors; 31 and who are faithful to their trusts and to their pledges: 32 Who uphold their testimonies, 33 and who are constant in their prayers. 34 These will dwell in Gardens, honoured. 35