The Hidden Secret (Al-Muddath-thir)
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
O THOU [in thy solitude] enfolded! 1 Arise and warn, 2 Glorify your Lord, 3 And your garments purify! 4 And all abomination shun! 5 And do not confer favor to acquire more 6 And persevere in the way of your Lord. 7 When the Trumpet shall be sounded, 8 That shall be - that Day - a day hard. 9 for the unbelievers not easy. 10 Leave Me and him whom I created alone, 11 And then bestowed upon him ample means, 12 and sons ever present with him, 13 and for whom I have smoothed the way (to power and riches), 14 Yet is he greedy-that I should add (yet more);- 15 Nay! He is forward unto Our signs; 16 I shall oblige him to (climb a slippery mountain in the Hell-fire called As-Sa'ud, or to) face a severe torment! 17 Behold, [when Our messages are conveyed to one who is bent on denying the truth,] he reflects and meditates [as to how to disprove them] 18 and woe to him; how he plotted! 19 Yea, Woe to him; How he plotted!- 20 Then looked he, 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 not but the word of a human being." 25 I shall make him suffer the torment of hell. 26 And what will make you know exactly what Hell-fire is? 27 It leaves and spares no one and nothing. 28 It shrivelleth the man. 29 Over it are nineteen (guards). 30 And We have set none but angels as guardians of the Fire, and We have fixed their number (19) only as a trial for the disbelievers, in order that the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) may arrive at a certainty [that this Quran is the truth as it agrees with their Books i.e. their number (19) is written in the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)] and the believers may increase in Faith (as this Quran is the truth) and that no doubts may be left for the people of the Scripture and the believers, and that those in whose hearts is a disease (of hypocrisy) and the disbelievers may say: "What Allah intends by this (curious) example?" Thus Allah leads astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And none can know the hosts of your Lord but He. And this (Hell) is nothing else than a (warning) reminder to mankind. 31