Ан-Назиат

By those that wrest, [by] the angels who wrest the souls of disbelievers, violently;

by those that draw out, [by] the angels who draw out the souls of believers, gently;

by those that glide serenely, [by] the angels who descend from the heavens with His command, exalted be He;

by those that race forward, [by] the angels who race forward to Paradise with the souls of believers;

and by those that direct the affair, [by] the angels who direct the affairs of this world, that is to say, they descend with the directions for it [from God] (the response to all of these oath clauses has been omitted, understood to be [something like], la-tub‘athunna yā kuffāra Makka, ‘you shall certainly be resurrected, O disbelievers of Mecca!’, which is also the operator of [the following clause]):

the day when the Tremor quakes, that is to say, the first blast, as a result of which everything will be shaken violently (thus it [the subject] has been described in terms of the effect it produces),

and is followed by the Aftershock, the second blast; between the two [blasts] is a span of forty years (the sentence [tatba‘uhā’l-rādifatu] is a circumstantial qualifier referring to al-rājifa, ‘the Tremor’, in other words, the ‘day’ can [adverbially] accommodate both blasts and other events, and so for this reason it can also properly function as the adverbial qualifier for the Resurrection that will take place after the second [blast]);

on that day hearts will be trembling, frightened and anxious,

their eyes humbled, abject, because of the terror that they see.

They, those of the [mentioned] hearts and eyes, will say, mockingly and in rejection of the Resurrection: ‘Are we indeed (read a-innā pronouncing both hamzas, or by not pronouncing the second, and inserting an alif between them in both cases, and in both instances) being restored as before? Shall we be restored to life after death (al-hāfira is a noun signifying the ‘first part’ of anything, from which is derived the expression raja‘a fī hāfiratihi to mean that so and so ‘returned whence he had come’).

What! When we have been decayed bones?’ (nakhira: a variant reading has nākhira, ‘decayed and withered’), will we have life again?

They will say, ‘That, return of ours to life, then, if it were true, would be a ruinous return!’.

God, exalted be He, says: But it, the Aftershock, which will be followed by the Resurrection, will be only a single blast, and so when it is blasted:

behold, then, they, all creatures, will be upon the surface of the earth, alive, after having been dead inside it.

Have you, O Muhammad (s), received the story of Moses (hadīthu Mūsā operates [the clause that follows]),

when his Lord called out to him in the holy valley of Tuwā? — this is the name of the valley (it may be read with nunation, Tuwan, or without) — and He said:

‘Go to Pharaoh; he has indeed become rebellious, he has exceeded [all] bounds with his disbelief,

and say, “Would you — I call you [to] — purify yourself (tazakkā: a variant reading has tazzakkā, where the original second tā’ [of tatazakkā] has been assimilated with the zāy), to purge yourself of idolatry, by bearing witness that there is no god but God,

and allow me to guide you to your Lord, to show you how to know Him (ma‘rifa) by way of proofs, so that you may have fear [of Him]?” ’

So he showed him the greatest sign, from among His nine signs, namely, the [glowing] hand or the [slithering] staff.

But he, Pharaoh, denied, Moses, and disobeyed, God, exalted be He.

Then he turned his back, to faith, going about in haste, throughout the land causing corruption.

Then he gathered, he assembled the sorcerers and his armies, and proclaimed,

and said, ‘I am your most high lord!’, above whom is no other lord.

So God seized him, He destroyed him by drowning him, as punishment for the latter, that is to say, these [last] words [of his], and for the former, that is to say, his saying previously, ‘I do not know of any god for you other than me’ [Q. 28:38] — and between the two [claims made by Pharaoh] was an interval of forty years.

Assuredly in that, which is mentioned, there is a moral for him who fears, God, exalted be He.

Are you (read a-antum pronouncing both hamzas, or by substituting an alif for the second one, not pronouncing it and inserting an alif between the one not pronounced and the former, or without [this insertion]), namely, [you] the deniers of the Resurrection, harder to create or the heaven which He has built?, harder to create (banāhā: an explication of the manner of [its] creation).

He made it rise high — an explication of the manner of [its] construction; in other words, He made its vertical extension high; it is also said that samkahā means ‘its ceiling’ — and levelled it: He made it even, flawless,

and darkened its night, and brought forth its day: He exposed the light of its sun (‘night’ has been annexed to it [the heaven] because it represents its shade, and likewise the ‘sun’, because it represents its light);

and after that He spread out the earth: He made it flat, for it had been created before the heaven, but without having been spread out;

from it He has brought forth (akhraja: a circumstantial qualifier with a suppressed [preceding] qad, that is to say, mukhrijan, ‘bringing forth [from it]’) its waters, by making its springs gush forth, and its pastures, what cattle graze, of trees and herbage, and what humans consume of foods and fruits (the use of mar‘ā to express this [of the earth] is figurative),

and has set firm the mountains, on the face of the earth so that it stays still,

as a [source of] sustenance (an object denoting reason for an implied [verbal clause], in other words, fa‘ala dhālika mut‘atan or tamtī‘an, ‘He did this to provide [a source of] sustenance’) for you and your flocks (an‘ām is the plural of na‘am, which are camels, cows and sheep).

So when the Greatest Catastrophe befalls — the second blast —

the day when man will remember (yawma yatadhakkaru’l-insānu substitutes for idhā, ‘when’) his efforts, in the [life of the] world, in the way of good or evil,

and the Hell-fire, the consuming Fire, is revealed for all to see, for every on-looker (the response to idhā, ‘when’, is [what follows]):

as for him who was rebellious, [who] disbelieved,

and preferred the life of this world, by pursuing [carnal] desires,

Hell-fire will indeed be the abode, his abode.

But as for him who feared the stance before his Lord, his standing before Him, and forbade the, evil-bidding, soul from [pursuing] desire, that leads to perdition as a result of [that person’s] lusting after [carnal] desires,

Paradise will indeed be the abode: in sum the response [to idhā, ‘when’, verse 34] is that the disobedient one will be in the Fire and the obedient one in Paradise.

They, that is, the disbelievers of Mecca, will ask you about the Hour: when will it set in?, when will it come to pass and when will it begin?

What have you to do with the mention of it?, in other words, you have no knowledge of it in order to mention it.

With your Lord it belongs ultimately, ultimate knowledge of it [lies with Him]; none other than Him has any knowledge of it.

You are only a warner for, your warning will only benefit, the one who fears it.

The day they see it, it will be as if they had only tarried, in their graves, for an evening or the morning thereof, that is to say, [as if only] one evening of a day or its morning (the annexation of duhā, ‘morning’, to ‘ashiyya, ‘evening’, is valid, on the basis of their contiguity, since both constitute either side of the day; the annexation has also allowed for the word to fall in harmony with the end-rhyme of the verses).