Al-Muddaththir

O you enveloped in your mantle, the Prophet (s) (al-muddaththir is actually al-mutadaththir, but the tā’ has been assimilated with the dāl) that is to say, the one who is enwrapped in his clothes when the Revelation [Gabriel] comes down on him,

arise and warn: threaten the people of Mecca with [punishment in] the Fire should they refuse to believe;

and magnify your Lord, exalt [Him] above what is ascribed [to Him] by the idolaters;

and purify your clothes, from impurity, or [it means] shorten them, instead of [imitating] the way in which the Arabs [are wont to] let their robes drag [behind them], out of vanity, for perhaps they will be sullied by some impurity;

and shun [all] defilement, [this rijz] was explained by the Prophet (s) to be the graven images; in other words, persist in shunning them.

And do not grant a favour seeking greater gain (read tastakthiru as a circumstantial qualifier) in other words, do not give something in order to demand more in return: this [stipulation] is specific to the Prophet (s), since he is enjoined to [adopt] the fairest traits and the noblest of manners;

and endure patiently for the sake of your Lord, [all His] commands and prohibitions.

For when the trumpet is sounded, when the trumpet is blown, that is, the Horn (qarn), at the second blast,

that day, that is to say, the time of the sounding (yawma’idhin is a substitution for the preceding subject, and is not declined because it is annexed to something that cannot be declined; the predicate of the subject [is the following]) will be a harsh day (idhā is operated by what is indicated by the statement: ishtadda’l-amru, ‘[for when the trumpet is sounded] the situation will be terrible’),

for the disbelievers, not at all easy: herein is an indication that it will be easy for believers despite its harshness.

Leave Me [to deal] with him whom I created (wa-man khalaqtu is a supplement to the direct object, or [it is] an object of accompaniment) lonely (wahīdan is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the man, ‘whom’, or to the pronoun referring to it but omitted from khalaqtu [sc. khalaqtuhu]), alone, without family or wealth — this was al-Walīd b. al-Mughīra al-Makhzūmī —

and [then] assigned him ample means, abundant and continuous, [generated] from [his] crops, livestock and commerce,

and sons, ten or more, present [by his side], present at social gatherings and whose testimonies are listened to,

and facilitated, extended, for him greatly, [his] livelihood, duration of life and children.

Still he is eager that I should give [him] more.

Nay!, I shall not give him more than that. He is indeed stubborn to Our signs, [to] the Qur’ān.

[Soon] I shall burden him with a trying chastisement; alternatively [sa‘ūdan means] a mountain of fire which he will be made to ascend and then fall down from, forever.

Indeed he pondered, what to say about the Qur’ān which he heard from the Prophet (s), and decided, this, in his mind.

Perish he, may he be cursed and chastised, how he decided!, [perish he] whatever the nature of his decision may have been.

Again, perish he, how he decided!

Then he contemplated, the faces of his people; or [he contemplated] with what [words] he might cast aspersions upon it.

Then he frowned, he contracted his face and glowered, anguished by what he wanted to say, and scowled, increasing the contracting and the glowering [in his face].

Then he turned his back, to faith, in disdain, scornful of following the Prophet (s),

and said, of what he [the Prophet] had brought: ‘This is nothing but handed-down sorcery, learnt from sorcerers;

this is nothing but the speech of humans’, similar to what they [the idolaters] had said: ‘It is only a human that is teaching him’ [Q. 16:103].

I shall [soon] admit him into Saqar! — Hell.

And how would you know what is Saqar? — this [interrogative] is intended to emphasise its enormity.

It neither spares nor leaves behind, anything of flesh or nerve, but destroys it [all], after which he is restored to his former state.

It burns away the flesh, scorching the surface of skin.

There are nineteen [keepers] standing over it, angels, its keepers; a certain disbeliever, who was a mighty stalwart, said, ‘I will avail you seventeen of them, if you avail me [just] two’. God, exalted be He, says:

And We have appointed only angels as wardens of the Fire, in other words, and so they cannot be withstood as these [disbelievers are wont to] imagine; and We have made their number, so, only as a stumbling-block, a cause for error, for those who disbelieve, when they then say, ‘Why are there nineteen of them?’, so that those who were given the Scripture, namely, the Jews, may be certain, of the sincerity of the Prophet (s) in [saying that] they are nineteen, for this concords with what is in their Scripture; and that those who believe, from among the People of the Scripture, may increase in faith, in affirmation of the truth, given that what the Prophet (s) has said concords with what is in their Scripture, and that those given the Scripture and the believers, [those] other than these [Jews], may not be in doubt, concerning the number of [these] angels, and that those in whose hearts there is a sickness, an uncertainty, [those] in Medina, and the disbelievers, in Mecca, may say, ‘What did God mean by this, number [as a], similitude?’ (mathalan: they referred to it thus [as a mathal] on account of it being a curious matter; in terms of syntax, it [mathalan] is a circumstantial qualifier). Thus, that is, just as the one who rejects this number is led astray and the one who affirms the truth of it is guided, God leads astray whom He will and guides whom He will. And none knows the hosts of your Lord, namely, the angels, [none knows them] in terms of their strength and their assistants, except Him. And it, that is, Saqar, is nothing but a reminder for humans.

Nay, (kallā: denoting a commencement [of a new sentence], to be understood as alā) by the moon!

And by the night when it returns! (if read as idhā dabara), when it comes back after day (a variant reading has idh adbara, meaning ‘when it has receded’).

And by the dawn when it appears!

Verily it, that is, Saqar, is one of the enormities, [one of] the greatest calamities —

a warning (nadhīran is a circumstantial qualifier referring to ihdā, ‘one of’, and it is masculine because it denotes [masculine] ‘adhāb, ‘chastisement’) to [all] humans;

[alike] to those of you who wish (li-man shā’a minkum is a substitution for li’l-bashar, ‘to [all] humans’) to advance, towards good, or towards Paradise by means of faith, or linger behind, in evil, or in Hell because of [their] disbelief.

Every soul is held to ransom by what it earns, [it is] ransomed and requited for its deeds with the Fire,

except those of the right [hand], namely, the believers who will be saved from it, and [who] will be,

in gardens, questioning one another,

about the guilty, and their predicament; and they will say to them, after all those who believed in the One God (muwahhidūn) are brought out of the Fire:

‘What has landed you in, [what has] made you enter, Saqar?’

They will say, ‘We were not of those who prayed.

Nor did we [ever] feed the needy.

And we used to delve, into falsehood, along with those who delved,

and we used to deny the Day of Judgement, [the Day] of Resurrection and Requital,

until [finally] the inevitable came to us’ — death.

Thus the intercession of the intercessors, from among the angels, the prophets and the righteous, will not avail them, in other words, there will be no intercession for them.

So what (fa-mā: the subject) is wrong with them (lahum: the predicate thereof, semantically connected to an omitted clause, the person of which has been transposed onto it) that they turn away (mu‘ridīna is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the [suffixed] pronoun [in lahum, ‘them’]) from the Reminder — in other words, ‘what has happened to them that they have turned away from admonition’ —

as if they were wild asses

fleeing from a lion?, that is to say, fleeing from it with absolute fright.

Nay, but everyone of them desires to be given unrolled scrolls, from God, exalted be He, [enjoining them] to follow the Prophet (s), as they said [before], ‘And [even then] we will not believe your ascension until you bring down for us a book that we may read’ [Q. 17:93].

No indeed! (kallā: a deterrent of what they desire). Rather they do not fear the Hereafter, that is, the chastisement thereof.

No indeed! (kallā: a commencement [of a new sentence]) Assuredly it, that is, the Qur’ān, is a Reminder, an admonition.

So whoever wills shall remember it, he shall read it and be admonished by it.

And they will not remember (yadhkurūna or [read second person plural] tadhkurūna) unless God wills [it]. He is [the One] worthy of [your] fear, and [the One] worthy to forgive, by forgiving those who fear Him.