The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Someone has (needlessly) demanded to experience the torment (of God), 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 be patient with gracious patience. 5 Lo! they behold it afar off 6 But We see it very near. 7 The day when the sky will become as molten copper, 8 and the mountains will become like dyed tufts of wool, 9 And no friend inquires after friend 10 (Though) they shall be made to see each other. The guilty one would fain redeem himself from the chastisement of that day by (sacrificing) his children, 11 And his wife and his brother 12 the kinsmen who gave him shelter, 13 And all those who are on the earth, to save himself. 14 By no means! Verily it is a Flame. 15 Dragging by the head, 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 accumulated wealth and hoarded it. 18 ۞ Lo! man was created anxious, 19 When evil comes upon him he is impatient; 20 And when good touches him, withholding [of it], 21 Not so are the prayerful. 22 Who are at their prayer constant. 23 And in whose wealth there is a right acknowledged 24 to those who ask [for help] and to the destitute; 25 And those who believe in the Day of Judgement, 26 and go in fear of the punishment of their Lord, 27 for none is secure from the punishment of their Lord, 28 And those who preserve their chastity 29 save from their wives and what their right hands own, then not being blameworthy 30 But those who seek more than this will be transgressors; 31 And those who keep their pledges and their covenant, 32 And those who are firm upon their testimonies. 33 and who observe their prayers. 34 Such will be the honoured ones in the Gardens (of Bliss). 35