1. By the Mount – this is the mountain on which Allah spoke to Musa

2. …and an Inscribed Book

3. …on an Unfurled Scroll – the Torah or the Qur’an –

4. …by the Visited House – in the third, sixth or seventh heaven above the Ka‘ba. Seventy thousand angels visit it every day, perform tawaf and pray, and never return to it again;

5. …by the Raised Canopy – meaning the sky;

6. …by the Overflowing Ocean:

7. …your Lord’s punishment of those who deserve it will certainly take place.

8. No one can ward it off.

9. On the Day when heaven shakes and sways to and fro…

10. …and the mountains shift about and become scattered dust. That will occur on the Day of Rising:

11. … woe that Day to the deniers – a great punishment for those who deny the Messengers –

12. …who play at frivolous games – occupied and diverted with false things because of their unbelief,

13. …the Day they are shoved roughly into the Fire of Hell and are told as a rebuke to them:

14. ‘This is the Fire which you denied!

15. So is this punishment magic, as you used to say about the Revelation, or is it that you do not see?

16. Roast in it, and bear it patiently or do not bear it patiently; it makes no difference either way.“ Your patience and fear are the same because your patience will not help you.” You are simply being repaid for what you did.’

17. The godfearing will be in Gardens of Delight,

18. …savouring what their Lord has given them. Their Lord will safeguard them from the punishment of the Blazing Fire. They will be told:

19. ‘Eat and drink with relish for what you did.’

20. They will recline in the Garden on couches ranged in rows – side by side – and We will marry them to beautiful dark-eyed maidens (houris).

21. And We will unite those who believed with their offspring (read as dhurriyyatuhum and dhurriyyatuhum, singular and plural) who followed them (read as attaba‘athum and atba‘nahum) in belief – in the Garden and they will be in different ranks, even if they did not act worthily of them; to honour their fathers by joining their children to them – and We will not undervalue (read as alitna and alatna) their own actions in any way. Every man (human being) is in pledge for what he earned by his actions, good or bad. Evil will be punished and good will be rewarded.

22. We will supply them time after time with any kind of fruit and meat that they desire – and they do not have to look for it.

23. They will pass round there – in Paradise – a drinking cup of wine to one another with no foolish talk between them as a result of drinking it and no wrong action in it – which is not the case with wine in this world.

24. Circulating among them there will be youths – as servants – like hidden pearls as regards their beauty and fineness. A pearl when it is protected in its shell is more beautiful there than it is elsewhere.

25. Some of them will come up to others and they will question one another about what they had before in the world and the delight they are now experiencing, and they will acknowledge the blessing they have received.

26. They will say – indicating the reason for their arrival – ‘Beforehand we used live in fear among our families. “In this world, we used to fear Allah’s punishment.”

27. But Allah was gracious to us by forgiving us and safeguarded us from the punishment of the searing wind – heated by having entered the Fire.

28. Beforehand we certainly used to call on and worship Him alone in this world because He is the All-Good – the Divine Name used here, al-Barr, is the one who is good and truthful in His promise, the Most Merciful.’

29. Remind them, then! “Continue to remind the idolaters and do not cease doing that in spite of what they say about you being a soothsayer or a madman!” For, by the blessing of your Lord on you you are neither a soothsayer nor a madman.

30. Or do they say, ‘He is a poet and We are waiting for something bad to happen to him’? “ We are waiting for the events of time to destroy him like other poets.”

31. Say: ‘Wait then for my destruction! I am waiting with you for your destruction.’ They were punished by the sword in the Battle of Badr.

32. Is it their intellects that direct them to say this – that he is a magician, soothsayer or madman, meaning that their intelligence did not make them say this, or is it that they are an unbridled people in their obduracy?

33. Or do they say, ‘He has simply made it up’? “Do they say that he has forged the Qur’an?” He did not. No, the truth is that they do not believe out of arrogance.

34. If they do say that he has forged it, then: Let them produce a forged discourse like it if they are telling the truth.

35. Or were they created out of nothing without a Creator, or are they the creators? Did they create themselves? It is not logical that there should be a creature without a Creator or that something non-existent should create. So they must have a Creator, namely the One God. Yet they do not proclaim His unity nor believe in His Messenger and His Book.

36. Or did they create the heavens and the earth? Only Allah, the Creator, is capable of creating the heavens and the earth, so why do they not worship Him? No, in truth they have no certainty about Him. If they had had, they would have believed in His Prophet.

37. Or do they possess the treasuries of your Lord – referring to Prophethood, provision and other things, so that they can give whomever they wish whatever they wish – or do they have control of them and manage them?

38. Or do they have a ladder on which they can ascend to heaven and from which they listen to the words of the angels, so that they can argue with the Prophet to validate the allegations which they make? Then let their listener – the one who claims to listen – bring clear evidence for their claim that the angels are the daughters of Allah; so Allah says:

39. Or does He have daughters whereas they have sons? This is their baseless claim.

40. Or do you ask them for a wage for bringing them the dın so that they are weighed down with debt by that and for that reason do not become Muslim?

41. Or is knowledge of the Unseen in their hands so they can write out what is to happen – so that they can argue with the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, about the Resurrection and the matters of the Next World?

42. Or do they desire to dupe you? “Do they desire to outwit you so that they can murder you by plotting in the Dar an-Nadwa?” But the duped ones are those who disbelieve – who are defeated in their devising. For Allah protected him from them and then destroyed them at the Battle of Badr.

43. Or do they have some god other than Allah? Glory be to Allah above any idol they propose! He is exalted above any of their deities! Such questions convey rebuke and finding something to be ugly.

44. If they saw a lump of heaven falling down on them, as they had said, “Let parts of the heaven fall on us,” which would happen in order to punish them, they would just say, ‘It is banked-up clouds!’ and would not believe.

45. Leave them, then, until they meet their Day when they will be struck down by the Blast and then die,

46. …the Day their ploys will not profit them at all and they will not be helped and defended from punishment on the Last Day.

47. And those who do wrong by their unbelief will have a punishment besides that in this world before their death; and they were punished by hunger and drought for seven years and by being killed on the Day of Badr – but most of them do not know it – that the punishment will befall them.

48. So wait steadfastly for the judgement of your Lord when He delays their punishment; you are certainly before Our eyes. “We see you and We will preserve you.” And glorify and praise your Lord by saying, “Glory be to Allah and with His praise” when you get up from sleep or rise from your gathering.

49. …and glorify Him in the night and when the stars fade out: this may mean praying the night prayers (Maghrib and ‘Isha’) and “when the stars fade” is praying Fajr and Subh.