The Hidden Secret (Al-Muddath-thir)
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
O thou shrouded in thy mantle, 1 Arise and warn 2 And your Lord (Allah) magnify! 3 And keep your clothes clean. 4 And all abomination shun! 5 and bestow not favour in order to seek from others a greater return, 6 Exercise patience to please your Lord. 7 For when the trumpet shall sound, 8 Surely that day will be a day of anguish, 9 Not easy upon the disbelievers. 10 Let Me alone with him whom I created lonely. 11 And then bestowed upon him ample means, 12 And children present [with him] 13 whose life I have made run smoothly 14 and who still desires more. 15 Nay! Verily, he has been stubborn and opposing Our Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.). 16 I shall force him to endure a painful uphill climb! 17 He reflected, and then determined 18 and thus he destroys himself, the way he meditates: 19 Again, ruin seize him, how did he hatch a scheme? 20 and then he looks [around for new arguments,] 21 Then he frowned and scowled; 22 Then turned his back and waxed proud, 23 Then he said: This is naught but enchantment, narrated (from others); 24 This is naught but the word of a mortal. 25 I will cast him into Hell-fire 26 What could make you conceive what hell-fire is? 27 It neither spares, nor releases, 28 It shrivelleth the man. 29 Above it are nineteen. 30 We have appointed none but angels as the keepers of the Fire, and We have not made their number but as a trial for the unbelievers so that those who have been endowed with the Book will be convinced and the believers' faith will increase, and neither those who have been endowed with the Book nor the believers will fall into any doubt. As for those in whose hearts there is a sickness as well as the unbelievers, they will say: “What did Allah aim at by this strange parable?” Thus does Allah let whomsoever He pleases to go astray, and directs whomsoever He pleases to the Right Way. And none knows the hosts of your Lord but He. (And Hell has only been mentioned here) that people may take heed. 31