The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
ONE who is minded to ask might ask about the suffering which [in the hereafter] is bound to befall 1 the unbelievers which none can prevent. 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 So be thou patient with a sweet patience; 5 They think that it (the Day of Judgment) is far away. 6 And We see it nigh. 7 On the day when the heavens become like molten metal. 8 And then the mountains shall become like unto wool dyed. 9 no loyal friend shall question loyal friend, 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 And his wife and his brother 12 And the family in which he was. 13 And all those that are in the earth, (wishing) then (that) this might deliver him. 14 Nay, verily it is a furnace 15 that will strip off the scalp. 16 Calling: "[O Kafir (O disbeliever in Allah, His angels, His Book, His Messengers, Day of Resurrection and in Al-Qadar (Divine Preordainments), O Mushrik (O polytheist, disbeliever in the Oneness of Allah)] (all) such as turn their backs and turn away their faces (from Faith) [picking and swallowing them up from that great gathering of mankind (on the Day of Resurrection) just as a bird picks up a food-grain from the earth with its beak and swallows it up] [Tafsir Al-Qurtubi, Vol. 18, Page 289] 17 and amass [wealth] and thereupon withhold [it from their fellow-men]. 18 ۞ Indeed, mankind was created anxious: 19 Fretful when evil befalleth him 20 And when good toucheth him he is begrudging. 21 Except the observers of prayer - 22 Those who are constant in their prayer 23 They are those who assign a certain share of their property 24 for the needy and the deprived, 25 and those who believe in the Day of Judgement 26 and go in fear of the punishment of their Lord, 27 (from their Lord's chastisement none feels secure) 28 those who preserve their chastity 29 save from their wives and what their right hands own, then not being blameworthy 30 (but whoso seeks after more than that, they are the transgressors), 31 and who are faithful to their trusts and to their pledges: 32 and those who stand by their testimony 33 And those who are attentive at their worship. 34 They will be honoured in the Gardens of Bliss. 35