1. Ha Mim. Allah knows best what this means.

2. A revelation from the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful.

3. A Book whose verses have been demarcated – and makes clear judgements, stories and warnings – for people who know and understand it, meaning the Arabs – as an Arabic Qur’an…

4. …bringing good news and giving warning; but most of them have turned away and do not hear or accept.

5. They say to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ‘Our hearts are covered up against what you call us to and there is a heaviness in our ears. There is a screen – of disagreement about the dın – between us and you. So act – by your din – we are certainly acting – by our din.’

6. Say: ‘I am only a human being like yourselves. It is revealed to me that your god is One God. So be straight with Him – by acting with faith and obedience – and ask His forgiveness.’ Woe (punishment) to those who associate others with Him:

7. …those who do not pay zakat and who deny the Next World.

8. Those who believe and do right actions will have a wage which never fails or ceases.

9. Say: ‘Do you reject Him who created the earth in two days – said to be Sunday and Monday – and make others (partners) equal to Him? That is the Lord of all the worlds.’ He is the Master of all the worlds, which means all that is other than Allah. It is plural because of the many varieties in it.

10. He placed firmly embedded mountains on it, towering over it, and blessed it – with plentiful water, crops and livestock – and measured out its nourishment in it – for mankind and animals, over four days – laid out for those who seek it – all in four days – adding Tuesday and Wednesday to the first two days. This is the answer for those who ask about the creation of the earth and what is in it.

11. Then He turned His attention to heaven when it was smoke – a rising mist – and said to it and to the earth, ‘Come willingly or unwillingly, obediently or reluctantly, to what I desire of you.’ They both said, ‘We come – together with those within us – willingly.’

12. In two days – Thursday and Friday – He determined them as seven heavens – and completed that in the last hour of Friday during which He created Adam, and so He created all existent things in six days – and revealed, in every heaven, its own mandate – inspired every heaven with what it was commanded to do by way of obedience and worship. We adorned the lowest heaven with lamps (stars) and guarded it against the eavesdropping of the shaytans with meteors. That is the decree of the Almighty in His kingdom, the All- Knowing of His creation.

13. If they – the unbelievers of Makka – turn away from faith after things have been made clear, then say, to frighten them: ‘I warn you of a lightning-bolt – which will destroy you – like the lightningbolt of ‘Ad and of Thamud – which destroyed them.’

14. When the Messengers came to them from in front and from behind – and they rejected their message, as will be mentioned – saying, ‘Do not worship anyone but Allah.’ they said, ‘If our Lord had willed, He could have sent angels down to us; so we reject the message you have been sent with.’

15. ‘Ad were arrogant in the land, without any right, saying – when they were threatened with the punishment – ‘Who has greater strength than us?’ No one, they thought! One of them could wrench out an immense stone from a mountain and put it wherever He wished. Did they not see and know that Allah, who created them, had greater strength than them? But they renounced Our Signs (miracles).

16. So We sent a howling wind – the word used here means a bitterly cold wind with no rain in it – against them on disastrous ill-fated (read as nahisat and nahsat) days to make them taste the punishment of degradation in this world. But the punishment of the Next World is even more degrading, and they will not be helped. No one will defend them.

17. As for Thamud, We guided them – making the Path of guidance clear to them – but they preferred blindness to guidance by choosing unbelief. So the lightning-bolt of the humiliating punishment seized them on account of what they earned.

18. And We rescued those among them who believed and were godfearing.

19. On the Day the enemies of Allah are crowded (read as yuhsharu, and also nahshuru, in which case the meaning is “We crowd”) into the Fire and they are driven in close-packed ranks,

20. …when they reach it, their hearing, sight and skin will testify against them concerning what they did.

21. They will ask their skins, ‘Why did you testify against us?’ and they will reply, ‘Allah gave us speech as He has given speech to everything by His will. He created you in the first place and you will be returned to Him. This is said to be spoken by their skins and is also said to be the words of Allah, as is what follows. The One who had the power to originate them the first time and can restore them to life has the power to make their skins and limbs speak.

22. You did not think to shield yourselves – by not committing foul actions – from your hearing, sight and skin testifying against you, because you did not think you would be resurrected; and you thought that Allah would never know much of what you did.

23. It is that thought you had about your Lord that has destroyed you so now you find yourselves among the lost.’

24. Even if they are steadfast in face of the the punishment the Fire will still be their residence! If they ask for favour; no favour will be given to them by anyone.

25. We have assigned to them close comrades from among the shaytans, who have made what is before them – love of this world and the pursuit of gross appetites – and behind them – meaning the reality of the Next World, by telling them that there is no Resurrection and no Reckoning – seem good to them. And the statement – the decree of punishment when Allah says, “I will fill Hellfire…” (7:18) – about the nations, both of jinn and men, who passed away before them has proved true of them as well. Certainly they were lost and destroyed.

26. Those who disbelieved say – when the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is reciting the Qur’an – ‘Do not listen to this Qur’an. Drown it out – in other words, make a noise and shout while he is reciting – so that perhaps you may gain the upper hand and he will stop reciting.’

27. Allah says about them: We will make those who disbelieved suffer a severe punishment and repay them for the worst of what they did: make them suffer most horrendous requital for their actions.

28. That terrible punishment and repayment is the requital of the enemies of Allah – the Fire. They will have it for their Eternal Home – and abide in it for ever and never leave it – as repayment for their renunciation of Our Signs (the Qur’an).

29. Those who disbelieve say, in the Fire: ‘Our Lord, show us those jinn and men who misguided us – a reference to Iblis and Qabil who made unbelief and murder a custom among men – and we will place them beneath our feet in the Fire so that they will be among the lowest of the low – receive a worse punishment than us.’

30. The angels descend on those who say, ‘Our Lord is Allah,’ and then go straight – in other words, affirm Allah’s unity and do all the things which are mandatory for them – ‘Do not fear death and what lies after it and do not grieve about any family and children you have left behind – but rejoice in the Garden you have been promised.

31. We are your protectors – guarding you – in the life of this world and the Next World and we will be with you until you enter the Garden. You will have there all that your selves could wish for. You will have there everything you demand,

32. … as hospitality – welcome and provision – from One who is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful (Allah).’

33. Who could say anything better than someone who summons to the unity of Allah, acts rightly and says, ‘I am one of the Muslims’? No one can say anything better than this.

34. A good action and a bad action are not the same – this may also mean that good and bad actions vary according to the extent of their respective goodness or badness. Repel the bad action with something better – a quality that is better than it: for instance you may repel anger with steadfastness, rashness with forbearance and harm with forgiveness, and if there is enmity between you and someone else, he will be like a bosom friend. Then your enemy will become like a close friend in his love for you if you do that.

35. None will obtain it but those who are truly steadfast. None will obtain it (the better quality) but those who have great good fortune (reward).

36. If an evil urge from Shaytan eggs you on – and he turns you aside from that quality and other good attributes – seek refuge in Allah. He is the All-Hearing of what is said, the All-Know i n g of what is done.

37. Among His Signs are the night and day and the sun and moon. Do not prostrate to the sun nor to the moon. Prostrate to Allah who created them (these signs) if you worship Him.

38. If they grow too arrogant to prostrate to Allah alone, those who are with your Lord – meaning the angels – glorify Him night and day in prayer and never grow tired.

39. Among His Signs is that you see the earth laid bare and arid, with no plants on it, and then, when We send down water on it, it quivers and swells. He who gives it life is He who gives life to the dead. Certainly He has power over all things.

40. Those who adulterate (read as yulhiduna and yalhaduna) Our Signs (the Qur’an ) which they deny are not concealed from Us – and We will repay them. Who is better: someone who will be thrown into the fire or someone who will arrive in safety on the Day of Rising? Do what you like. He sees whatever you do. This is a threat.

41. Those who reject the Remembrance (the Qur’an) when it comes to them, We will repay them. Truly it is a Mighty Book;

42. …falsehood cannot reach it from before it or behind it. Nothing can invalidate it before it or after it. It is a revelation from One who is All-Wise, Praiseworthy in what He does.

43. Nothing has been said to you by way of denial that was not said to the Messengers before you. Your Lord is the Possessor of forgiveness for believers – but also of painful retribution for unbelievers.

44. If We had made it (the Reminder) a Qur’an in a foreign tongue they would have said, ‘Why have its Signs not been made plain – so that we may understand it? What! A foreign language for an Arab?’ Is the Qur’an in a foreign tongue, when the Prophet is an Arab? This implies a negative answer. Say: ‘It is guidance away from error and healing for ignorance for people who believe. Those who do not believe have heaviness in their ears – preventing them from hearing – and for them it is blindness – meaning that they do not understand it. Such people are being called from a very distant place.’ They are like someone who is being called from a distance and so they do not hear or understand what is being said.

45. We gave Musa the Book (the Torah) but there was disagreement about it – some people denying it and some affirming it, which is also the case with the Qur’an. And had it not been for a prior Word from your Lord – that the reckoning and repayment of creatures would be deferred until the Day of Rising – the judgement between them would already have been made in this world about their disagreement. They are indeed in grave doubt about it.

46. Whoever acts rightly, it is for his own good and benefit. Whoever does evil, it is to his detriment – and his evil comes back on himself. Your Lord does not wrong His slaves . Allah never wrongs anyone in any way: as He says, “Allah does not wrong anyone by so much as the smallest mote.” (4:40)

47. Knowledge of the Hour is referred to Him. Allah knows when it will occur, and no one but Him knows that. And no fruit (read as thamara torthamara, plural and singular) emerges from its husk except by His knowledge, nor does any female get pregnant or give birth, without His knowledge. On the Day He calls out to them: ‘Where are My associates?’ they will say, ‘We declare to you that we now know that none of us is a witness that You have a partner.’

48. What (the idols) they called upon and worshipped before – in this world – will have forsaken them and they will realise with certainty that they have no way of escape from the punishment.

49. Man never tires of praying for what is good and continues to ask his Lord for wealth and health and other things; and if evil touches him – poverty and hardship – he despairs of Allah’s mercy and loses hope.

50. This and what follows is about the unbelievers. But if We let him taste mercy as a gift, such as wealth and health, from Us after he has suffered hardship – harm and affliction – then he says: ‘This is my due because of my actions. I do not think that the Hour is going to come, and if am returned to my Lord, I will definitely find the best reward (the Garden) with Him.’ But We will inform those who disbelieved of what they did, and make them suffer an implcable punishment.

51. When We grant blessing to a man – meaning people in general – he turns away– from thankfulness and draws aside, but when any evil touches him, he is full of many endless prayers!

52. Say: ‘What do you think? If it (the Qur’an ) is from Allah – as the Prophet says – and you reject it, who could be more misguided (further from the truth) than someone entrenched in hostility to it?’ This explains their state.

53. We will show them Our Signs on the horizon – in the heavens and the earth there are signs in the form of lights, plants and trees – and within themselves – in the subtle workmanship and marvelous wisdom of their physical makeup – until it is clear to them that it (the Qur’an) is the truth sent down from Allah regarding the Resurrection, Reckoning and Punishment. They will then be punished for their unbelief. Is it not enough for your Lord that He is Witness of everything and nothing is hidden from Him?

54. What! Are they in doubt about the meeting with their Lord and do they deny the Resurrection? What! Does He not encompass all things? Allah has total knowledge and power and will repay the unbelievers for their unbelief.