Qaf

Qāf: God knows best what He means by this [letter]. By the glorious Qur’ān, [by] the noble [Qur’ān], the disbelievers of Mecca have [certainly] not believed in Muhammad (s).

Nay, but they consider it odd that there should have come to them a warner from among themselves, a messenger who is one of them, to threaten them with [the punishment of] the Fire after resurrection. So the disbelievers say, ‘This, warning, is an odd thing!

What! (read a-idhā pronouncing both hamzas, or not pronouncing the second, but inserting an alif between the two in both cases) When we are dead and have become dust?, shall we return [to life]? That is a far-fetched return!’, [an event that is] extremely remote.

We know what the earth diminishes, consumes, of them, and with Us is a preserving Book, namely, the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfūz), which contains everything that has been ordained [by God].

Nay, but they denied the truth, the Qur’ān, when it came to them and so they, with regard to the Prophet (s) and the Qur’ān, are [now] in a confounded situation, a troubled [one]. [For] on one occasion they said [that he was], ‘A sorcerer!’ [cf. Q. 38:4] and [that his statements were] ‘[Nothing but manifest] sorcery!’ [cf. Q. 37:15], on another, ‘A poet!’ [cf. Q. 21:5] and ‘Poetry!’ [cf. Q. 36:69], and still on another, ‘A soothsayer!’ [cf. Q. 52:29] and [that his statements were nothing more than] soothsaying [cf. Q. 69:42].

Have they not then looked, with their own eyes, at the heaven, being, above them, in order to take heed by their own minds [of the consequences for them] when they deny the Resurrection, how We have built it, without supports, and adorned it, with planets, and how there are no cracks in it?, no fissures blemishing it.

And the earth (wa’l-arda, is a supplement to the position of the words ilā l-samā’i, ‘at the heaven’), how, We have spread it out, [how] We have rolled it across the face of the water, and cast in it firm mountains, to fix it in place, and caused every delightful kind, [every delightful] specimen, causing delight by its [very] beauty, to grow in it,

as an insight (tabsiratan is a direct object denoting reason, that is to say, We did this to give an insight from Us) and a reminder for every penitent servant, who returns to obedience of Us.

And We send down from the heaven blessed water, containing much blessing, with which We cause to grow gardens, orchards, and the grain that is harvested,

and the date-palms that stand tall (bāsiqātin, is an implied [future] circumstantial qualifier) with piled spathes, one [cluster of dates] sitting on top of the other,

as provision for [Our] servants (rizqan li’l-‘ibādi, is a direct object denoting reason); and with it We revive a dead land (baldatan may be followed equally by the masculine [maytan] or the feminine [adjective, maytatan]). So, like that manner of reviving, shall be the rising, from the graves: so how can you deny it? (the interrogative is meant as an affirmative; the meaning then is that they have indeed observed [all of these things] and are aware of what has been mentioned [yet they disbelieve]).

The people of Noah denied before them (kadhdhabat has a feminine person inflection because of the [feminine gender of the] import of qawm, ‘people’) and [so did] the dwellers at al-Rass — this was the name of a well around which they dwelt together with their livestock; they worshipped idols, and it is said that their prophet was one Hanzala b. Safwān; but some say that he was some other [person] — and Thamūd, the people of Sālih,

and ‘Ād, the people of Hūd, and Pharaoh, the brethren of Lot,

and the dwellers in the wood, a small forest — the people of Shu‘ayb — and the people of Tubba‘ — a king [who ruled] in Yemen; he had submitted [to God] and had summoned his people to [the same] submission [to God], but they denied him. Each, of those mentioned, denied the messengers, as [your tribe] Quraysh have, and so My threat became due, the sending down of chastisement on all [of them] became incumbent, so do not be anguished by Quraysh’s disbelieving in you.

Were We then wearied by the first creation?, that is to say, We were not wearied by it, and likewise We will not be wearied by restoring it. Nay, yet they are in doubt about a new creation, which will be [at] the Resurrection.

And verily We created man and We know (wa-na‘lamu is a circumstantial qualifier with an implicit [preceding] nahnu) what (mā relates to the verbal action) his soul whispers to him, [what] it speaks [to him] (the bi- [of bihi, ‘him’] is extra, or it is [required] for the intransitive verb to become transitive [and take a direct object]; the [suffixed] personal pronoun [in bihi, ‘him’] refers to man); and We are nearer to him, in knowing [him], than his jugular vein (habli’l-warīdi: the genitive annexation is explicative; al-warīdān are two [principal] veins on either side of the neck).

When (idh is dependent because of an implied udhkur, ‘mention’) the two Receivers, the two angels charged with [recording] a person’s deeds, receive, [when they] observe and record, seated, that is, [while] both of them are sitting (qa‘īdun, ‘seated’, is the subject, the predicate of which is the preceding [clause]), on the right and on the left, [hand side] of him —

he does not utter a word but that there is beside him a watcher, a guardian, [who is] ready, present (both [raqībun, ‘watcher’, and ‘atīdun, ‘ready’] are meant to indicate the dual).

And the agony of death, its throes and distress, arrives with the truth, of the Hereafter, such that the one who denied it sees it with his own eyes — and this is the distress itself. That, namely, death, is what you used to shun, [what you used] to flee from and be terrified by.

And the Trumpet will be blown, for resurrection. That, namely, the day of the blast, is the Day of the Promised Threat, of chastisement for the disbelievers.

And, thereat, every soul will come, to the site for the Gathering, accompanied by a driver, an angel to drive it there, and a witness, to testify to its deeds, namely, the hands and the feet and others; and it will be said to the disbeliever:

‘Verily, in the world, you were oblivious of this, that has befallen you on this day; So [now] We have removed from you your covering, We have done away with your oblivion by what you witness on this day, and so your sight on this day is acute’, [it is] sharp, able to perceive what you used to reject in the world.

And his companion, the angel charged with him, will say, ‘This is what I have ready with me [as testimony]’, whereupon it will be said to Mālik [the Keeper of the Fire]:

‘Cast into Hell (alqiyā: meaning [either] alqi alqi, ‘cast, cast …’ [to denote repetition], or [the emphatic form] alqiyan, ‘cast!’, which is the reading of al-Hasan [al-Basrī], in other words, the [final] nūn has been changed into an alif), every obdurate disbeliever, obstinate to the truth,

hinderer of good, such as [the payment of] alms, transgressor, wrongdoer, skeptic, a doubter of his religion,

who has set up alongside God another god! (alladhī ja‘ala ma‘a’Llāhi ilāhan ākhara is the subject, with an implicitly conditional import, the predicate of which is [the following]). Cast him then into the severe chastisement’ (the explanation of this [dual form of the verb alqiyāhu, ‘cast him’] is as above).

And his companion, Satan, will say, ‘Our Lord! I did not make him a rebel, I did [not] lead him astray, but he [himself] was in extreme error’, and so when I invited him [to disobedience] he heeded my call — for this one had said, ‘he [Satan] made me a rebel’, by way of his [Satan’s] invitation to him.

He, exalted be He, will say, ‘Do not dispute in My presence, in other words, disputing is of no use here, for I had already given you, in [the life of] the world, the threat, of chastisement in the Hereafter should you not believe, and so it is [now] inevitable.

The word [that comes] from Me, in this respect, cannot be altered, and I am not unjust to servants’, that I should chastise them without any guilt [on their part] (zallām means dhū zulm, ‘one of injustice’, because of His words, There will be no injustice today [Q. 40:17]);

on the day (yawma is in the accusative because of zallām, ‘unjust’) when We will say (naqūlu, may also be read yaqūlu, ‘He will say’) to Hell, ‘Are you [now] full?’ (this interrogative is for confirmation of His promise to fill it [with mankind and jinn]), and it will say, by way of an interrogative, such as a question: ‘Are there any more?’: that is to say, ‘I [Hell] only have capacity for what I have been filled with’, in other words, ‘I am full!’.

And Paradise will be brought near for the God-fearing, to a place, not far [anymore], from them, and so they see it, whereupon it will be said to them:

‘This, that you see, is what you were promised (read tū‘adūna, or [third person plural] yū‘adūna, ‘they were promised’), in the world (and [what follows] substitutes for li’l-muttaqīna, ‘for the God-fearing’) — [it is] for every penitent one, [for every] person reverting [after sin] to obedience of God, who is mindful, mindful of the bounds [of God’s religion],

who fears the Compassionate One [while He is] in the Unseen, [the one who] fears Him without having seen Him, and comes with a penitent heart’, [a heart] eagerly applying itself to obedience of Him.

It will also be said to the God-fearing: ‘Enter it in peace!, that is to say, secure from every fear, or [it means enter it] with a greeting, that is to say, greet [yourselves] and enter. That, day in which this entry takes place, is the day of immortality’, [of] everlastingness in Paradise.

Therein they will have whatever they wish; and with Us there is yet more, as extra for what they did and for what they will request.

And how many a generation We destroyed before them, that is, before the disbelievers of Quraysh We destroyed many generations of disbelievers, who were mightier than these in prowess, and [who] then searched throughout the land [wondering]: is there any escape?, for them and others from death, but they found none.

Assuredly there is in that, which is mentioned, a reminder, an admonition, for him who has a heart, a mind, or gives ear, [or] listens to admonitions, in [full] witness, present in heart [and mind].

And verily We created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, in six days, the first of which was Sunday and the last of which was Friday, and no weariness, no fatigue, touched Us: this was revealed as a refutation of the Jews’ claim that God rested on the Saturday and lay down upon the Throne. The preclusion of weariness in His case is [absolute] on account of His transcending of the attributes of creatures and the non-existence of any contiguity between Him and other [beings]: His command, when He wills a thing, is just to say to it ‘Be’, and it is [Q. 36:82].

So endure [patiently], addressing the Prophet (s), what they, the Jews and others, say, in the way of [anthropomorphic] comparisons and denials, and glorify with praise of your Lord, perform prayers with praise [of Him], before the rising of the sun, in other words, [perform] the morning prayer, and before the sunset, that is to say, [perform] both the midday and the afternoon prayers;

and glorify Him at [some part of the] night, that is to say, perform the two evening prayers, and after prostrations (read adbār, as the plural of dubur, or idbār as the verbal noun from adbara, ‘to pass’), in other words, perform supererogatory prayers as prescribed by the Sunna after the obligatory ones; it is also said to mean the actual uttering of glorifications at these times, with continuous praise.

And listen — O addressee to My words — on the day when the caller, namely, [the archangel] Isrāfīl, calls out from a place that is near, to the heaven: this is the Rock of the Holy House [of Jerusalem], the place on earth that is the nearest to the heaven. He [Isrāfīl] will say: ‘O withered bones, severed limbs, torn flesh and scattered hairs! God verily commands you to come together for the passing of judgement’.

On the day (yawma substitutes for the previous yawma) when they, that is, all creatures, hear the Call of truth, of the Resurrection — this will be Isrāfīl’s second blast, and it may precede or follow his [initial] call — that, day of the call and the hearing, is the day of coming forth, from the graves (yawma, ‘on the day, is in the accusative because of an implied yunādī, ‘[when] he will call’), that is to say, they will come to know the consequence of their denial.

Indeed it is We Who give life and bring death, and to Us is the journey’s end.

On the day when (yawma substitutes for the previous yawma, with the intervening [statement] being a parenthetical) the earth is split asunder (read tashaqqaqu, or tashshaqqaqu, where the original second tā’ [of tatashaqqaqu] has been assimilated with it [the shīn]) from them, [they will come] hastening forth (sirā‘an: [sirā‘] the plural of sarī‘, a circumstantial qualifier referring to an implied clause, that is to say [together they would read] fa-yakhrujūna musri‘īna, ‘they come forth hastening’). That is an easy gathering for Us (dhālika hashrun ‘alaynā yasīr: there is here a separation of the noun from its adjective by what is semantically connected to it, for the purpose of specification — which is [rhetorically] unobjectionable; dhālika, ‘that’, is meant to point out the signification of the ‘gathering’, which itself is [also] predicated by this [demonstrative particle], and this signification is the bringing back to life after extinction and the assembly for the exposition and the reckoning [before God]).

We know best what they, the disbelievers of the Quraysh, say, and you are not [to be] a coercer of them, so as to coerce them to [embrace] faith — but this was [revealed] before the command to struggle [against these disbelievers]. So admonish by the Qur’ān those who fear My threat, namely, believers.