The Heights (Al-Ma'aarej)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Someone has (needlessly) demanded to experience the torment (of God), 1 The unbelievers-- there is none to avert it-- 2 [since it will come] from God, unto whom there are many ways of ascent: 3 by which the angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in one Day the duration of which is fifty thousand years. 4 Therefore, [O believers] behave with seemly patience. 5 behold, men look upon that [reckoning] as something far away 6 But We see it (quite) near. 7 On that Day the heaven shall become like molten copper, 8 and the mountains will become like dyed tufts of wool, 9 and [when] no friend will ask about his friend, 10 They will be shown each other. The criminal will wish that he could be ransomed from the punishment of that Day by his children 11 And his wife and his brother, 12 His kindred who sheltered him, 13 And all who are on the earth; so that this might deliver him. 14 But nay! for lo! it is the fire of hell 15 snatching away 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 accumulated wealth and hoarded it. 18 ۞ Surely man is created of a hasty temperament 19 Being greatly grieved when evil afflicts him 20 And refraining, when good reaches him. 21 Not so, however, those who consciously turn towards God in prayer. 22 and are constant in their Prayer; 23 And those in whose wealth exists a recognised right, 24 for those that ask and those that are dispossessed, 25 who confirm the Day of Doom 26 And those who are fearful of the punishment of their Lord - 27 Indeed the punishment of their Lord is not a thing to be unafraid of! 28 And those who preserve their chastity 29 except in regard to their spouses and those whom their right hands possess, for in regard to them they are not reproachable, 30 But he who seeks to go beyond this, these it is that go beyond the limits-- 31 And those who keep their pledges and their covenant, 32 And those who are in their testimonies upright 33 and (finally) those who do not miss their ritual - prayers at the prescribed times; 34 These will dwell in Gardens, honoured. 35