069
The Message of the Quran
Muhammad Asad
AL-HAQQAH (THE LAYING-BARE OF THE TRUTH)
THE SIXTY-NINTH
SURAH
Total Verses: 52
Introduction
REVEALED shortly after surah 67 (Al-Mulk), i.e.,
about three or four years before the Prophet's exodus to
IN THE NAME OF
GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE:
(1) OH, THE LAYING-BARE of the truth!
1
(2) How awesome that laying-bare of the
truth!
(3) And what could make thee conceive
what that laying-bare of the truth will be? 2
(4) THE LIE gave [the tribes of] Thamud
and ‘Ad to [all tidings of] that sudden calamity! 3
(5) Now as for the Thamud - they were
destroyed by a violent upheaval [of the earth]; 4
(6) and as for the ‘Ad - they were
destroyed by a storm wind furiously raging,
(7) which He willed against them for
seven nights and eight days without cease, so that in the end thou couldst see
those people laid low [in death], as though they were so many [uprooted] trunks
of hollow palm trees:
(8) and dost thou now see any remnant of
them?
(9) And there was Pharaoh, too, and
[many of] those who lived before him, and the cities that were overthrown 5 -
[all of them] indulged in sin upon sin 10) and rebelled against their
Sustainer's apostles: and so He took them to task with a punishing grasp
exceedingly severe!
(11) [And] behold: when the waters [of
Noah's flood] burst beyond all limits, it was We who caused you 6 to
be borne [to safety] in that floating ark,
(12) so that We might make all this
7 a
[lasting] reminder to you all, and that every wide-awake ear might consciously
take it in.
(13) Hence, [bethink yourselves of the
Last Hour,] when the trumpet [of judgment] shall be sounded with a single
blast,
(14) and the earth and the mountains
shall be lifted up and crushed with a single stroke!
(15) And so, that which must come to
pass 8 will on that day have come to pass;
(16) and the sky will be rent asunder
9 -
for, frail will it have become on that Day - ;
(17) and the angels [will appear] at its
ends, 10 and, above them, eight will bear aloft on that Day the
throne of thy Sustainer’s almightiness… 11
(18) On that Day you shall be brought to
judgment: not [even] the most hidden of your deeds will remain hidden.
(19) Now as for him whose record shall
be placed in his right hand, 12 he will exclaim: "Come you all!" Read this my
record!
(20) Behold, I did know that [one day] I
would have to face my account! 13
(21) And so he will find himself in a
happy state of life,
(22) in a lofty paradise,
(23) with its fruits within easy reach.
(24) [And all who are thus blest will be
told:] "Eat and drink with good cheer in return for all [the good deeds]
that you have sent ahead in days gone by!"
(25) But as for him whose record shall
be placed in his left hand, 14 he will exclaim: "Oh, would that I had never been
shown this my record,
(26) and neither known this my account!
(27) Oh, would that this [death of mine]
had been the end of me!
(28) Of no avail to me is all that I
have [ever] possessed,
(29) [and] all my power of argument has
died away from me!" 15
(30) Thereupon the command will go
forth:] "Lay hold of him, and shackle him, 16
(31) and then let him enter hell,
(32) and then thrust him into a chain
[of other sinners like him 17 - a chain] the length whereof is seventy cubits: 18
(33) for, behold, he did not believe in
God, the Tremendous,
(34) and did not feel any urge 19 to
feed the needy:
(35) and so, no friend has here today,
(36) nor any food save the filth
(37) which none but the sinners
eat!" 20
(38) BUT NAY! I call to witness an that
you can see,
(39) as well as all that you cannot see!
21
(40) Behold, this [Quran] is indeed the
[inspired] word of a noble apostle,
(41) and is not – however little you may
[be prepared to] believe it - the word of a poet;
(42) and neither is it - however little
you may [be prepared to] take it to heart - the word of a soothsayer:
(43) [it is] a revelation from the
Sustainer of all the worlds.
(44) Now if he [whom We have entrusted
with it] had dared to attribute some [of his own] sayings unto Us,
(45) We would indeed have seized him by
his right hand, 22
(46) and would indeed have cut his
life-vein.
(47) and none of you could have saved
him!
(48) And, verily, this [Qur'an] is a
reminder to all the God-conscious! 23
(49) And, behold, well do We know that
among you are such as will give the lie to it:
(50) yet, behold, this [rejection] will
indeed become a source of bitter regret for all who deny the truth [of God's
revelation] –
(51) for, verily, it is truth absolute!
(52) Extol, then the limitless glory of
thy Sustainer's mighty name!
1 I.e., the
Day of Resurrection and Judgment, on which man will become fully aware of the
quality of his past life and, freed from all self-deception, will see himself
as he really was, with the innermost meaning of all his past doings - and thus
of his destiny in the hereafter - blindingly revealed. (Cf. 37:19, the last
sentence of 39:68, and 50:21-22.)
2 Implying that this sudden
perception of the ultimate reality will be beyond anything that man can
anticipate or imagine: hence, no answer is given to the above rhetorical
question.
3 I.e., the Last Hour (see note 1
on 101:1). For particulars of the pre-Islamic tribes of ‘Ad and Thamud, see
7:65-79 and the corresponding notes.
4 Cf. 7:78.
5 I.e., Sodom and Gomorrah, the
cities of Lot's people (see 11:69-83).
6 I.e., metonymically (in the
consensus of all classical commentators), "your ancestors".
7 Alluding to the punishment of
evildoers and the saving grace bestowed upon the righteous.
8 I.e., the end of the world as we
know it, followed by resurrection and the Last Judgment.
9 The term as-sarna' may
denote here "the sky" or "skies", i.e., the visible
firmament, or "heaven" in its allegorical sense, or the aggregate of
cosmic systems comprised in the concept of "the universe" (cf. surah
2, note 20). Its being "rent asunder" is perhaps a metaphor for a
total breakdown of the cosmic order.
10 Or: "at its sides".
11 Since God is infinite in space
as well as in time. it is obvious that His "throne" (arsh) has
a purely metaphorical connotation, circumscribing His absolute, unfathomable
sway over all that exists or possibly could exist (cf. note 43 on
12 I.e., ",-hose record shows
that he was righteous in his life on earth: cf. 17:71, as well as the symbolic
expression "those on the right hand" in 74:39. The linguistic origin
of the .symbolism of "right" and "left" as
"righteous" and "unrighteous" is explained in note 3 on
56:8-9.
13 Implying that he had always
been conscious of resurrection and judgment, and had tried to behave
accordingly.
14 Thus signifying that he had
been unrighteous in his earthly life, in contrast with those "whose record
will be placed in their right hand" (see verse 19 and note 12 above).
15 The term sultan, which
primarily signifies "power" or "authority", has here - as
in many other places in the Qur'an - evidently the meaning of
"argument", synonymous with hujjah (Ibn Abbas, Ikrimah,
Mujahid, Ad-Dahhak, all of them quoted by Tabari): in this case, an argument or
arguments against the idea of life after death and, hence, of divine judgment.
16 For an explanation of the
allegory of "shackles", see note 13 on 13:5, note 44 on the last but
one sentence of 34:33, and notes 6 and 7 on 36:8.
17 See 14:49 - "on that Day
thou wilt see all who were lost in sin (al-mujrimin) linked together in
fetters" - and the corresponding note 64, which explains my above
interpolation of the phrase, "of other sinners like him".
18 I.e., a chain exceedingly long
- the number "seventy" being useed here metonymically, as often done
in classical Arabic, in the sense of "very many" (Zamakhshari); hence
"of a measure the length whereof is known only to God" (Tabari; also
Al-Hasan, as quoted by Razi).
19 Lit., "did not urge",
i.e., himself.
20 The noun ghislin, which
appears in the Qur'an only in this one instance, has been variously - and very
contradictorily - explained by the early commentators. Ibn Abbas, when asked
about it, frankly answered, "I do not know what ghislin denotes"
(Razi). The term "filth" used by me contains an allusion to the
"devouring" of all that is abominable in the spiritual sense: cf. its
characterization in the next verse as "[that] which none but the sinners
eat" – i.e. (metaphorically) in this world, and, consequently, in the
hereafter as well.
21 The phrase "all that you
can see" comprises all the observable phenomena of nature - including man
himself and the organic conditions of his own existence - as well as the
configuration of human society and the perceptible rules of its growth and
decay in the historical sense; whereas "that which you cannot see"
relates to the intangible spiritual verities accessible to man’s intuition and
instinct, including the voice of his own conscience: all of which "bears
witness", as it were, to the fact that the light which the divine writ
(spoken of in the sequence) casts on innermost realities and interrelations of
all that exists objectively - or, as the case may be, manifests itself subjectively
in man's own psyche - must be an outcome of genuine revelation, inasmuch
as it goes far beyond anything that unaided human intellect could ever achieve.
22 I.e., deprived him of all
ability to act - the "right hand" symbolizing power.
23 Sc., "who believe in [the
existence of] that which is beyond the reach of human perception: cf. 2:2-3.