075
Muhammad Asad
AL-QIYAMAH (RESURRECTION)
THE SEVENTY-FIFTH
SURAH
Total Verses: 40
Introduction
REVEALED during the
first third of the
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE:
(1) NAY! I call to witness the Day of
Resurrection! 1
(2) But nay! I call to witness the
accusing voice of man's own conscience! 2
(3) Does man think that We cannot [resurrect him and] bring his bones together
again?
(4) Yea indeed, We
are able to make whole his very finger-tips!
(5) None the less man chooses to deny
what lies ahead of him,
(6) asking
[derisively], "When is that Resurrection Day to be?"
(7) But [on that Day,] when the eyesight
is by fear confounded,
(8) and the
moon is darkened,
(9) and the sun
and the moon are brought together 3-
(10) on that
Day will man exclaim "Whither to flee?"
(11) But nay: no refuge [for thee, O
man]!
(12) With thy Sustainer, on that Day,
the journey's end will be!
(13) Man will be apprised, on that Day,
of what he has done and what he has left undone: 4
(14) nay, but
man shall against himself be an eye-witness,
(15) even
though he may veil himself in excuses. 5
(16) MOVE NOT thy tongue in haste,
[repeating the words of the revelation:] 6
(17) for,
behold, it is for Us to gather it [in thy heart,] and to cause it to be read
[as it ought to be read]. 7
(18) Thus, when
We recite it, follow thou its wording [with all thy mind]: 8
(19) and then,
behold, it will be for Us to make its meaning clear. 9
(20) NAY, but [most of] you love this
fleeting life,
(21) and give
no thought to the life to come [and to Judgment Day]!
(22) Some faces will on that Day be
bright with happiness,
(23) looking up
to their Sustainer;
(24) and some
faces will on that Day be overcast with despair,
(25) knowing
that a crushing calamity is about to befall them.
(26) NAY, but when [the last breath]
comes up to the throat [of a dying man],
(27) and people
ask, "Is there any wizard [that could save him]?" 10
(28) the while
he [himself] knows that this is the parting,
(29) and is
enwrapped in the pangs of death 11 - :
(30) at that
time towards thy Sustainer does he feel impelled to turn! 12
(31) [Useless, though, will be his
repentance: 13] for [as long as he was alive] he did not accept the truth,
nor did he pray [for enlightenment],
(32) but, on
the contrary, he gave the lie to the truth and turned away [from it],
(33) and then
went arrogantly back to what he had come from. 14
(34) [And yet, O man, thine end comes hourly] nearer unto thee, and nearer –
(35) and ever
nearer unto thee, and nearer!
(36) DOES MAN, then, think that he is to
be left to himself to go about at will? 15
(37) Was he not once a [mere] drop of
sperm that had been spilt,
(38) and
thereafter became a germ-cell - whereupon He created and formed [it] in
accordance with what [it] was meant to be, 16
(39) and
fashioned out of it the two sexes, the male and the female?
(40) Is not He, then; able to bring the
dead back to life?
1 By
"calling it to witness", i.e., by speaking of the Day of Resurrection
as if it had already occurred, the above phrase is meant to convey the certainty
its coming.
2 Lit., "the [self-]reproaching soul": i.e., man's subconscious awareness
of his own shortcomings and failings.
3 I.e., in their loss of light, or
in the moon's colliding with the sun.
4 Lit., "what he has sent
ahead and left behind", i.e., whatever good and bad deeds he committed or
omitted (Zamakhshari).
5 Cf. 24:24, 36:65 or 41:20-22.
6 Lit., "Move not thy tongue
therewith so that thou might hasten if" - the pronoun undoubtedly
referring to the contents of revelation. In order to understand this parenthetic
passage (verses 16-19) more fully, one should read it side by side with the
related passage in 20:114, together with the corresponding note 101. Both these
passages are in the first instance addressed to the Prophet, who is said to
have been afraid that he might forget some of the revealed words unless he
repeated them at the very moment of revelation; but both have also a wider
import inasmuch as they apply to every believer who reads, listens to or
studies the Qur'an. In 20:114 we are told not to draw
hasty - and therefore potentially erroneous - conclusions from isolated verses
or statements of the Qur'an, since only the study of
the whole of its message can give us a correct insight. The present
passage, on the other hand, lays stress on the need to imbibe the divine writ
slowly, patiently, to give full thought to the meaning of every word and
phrase, and to avoid the kind of haste which is indistinguishable from
mechanical glibness, and which, moreover, induces the person who reads, recites
or listens to it to remain satisfied with the mere beautiful sound of the Qur'anic language without understanding - or even paying
adequate attention to - its message.
7 I.e., "it is for Us to make thee remember it and to cause it to be read with
mind and heart". As pointed out in the preceding note, the Qur'an can be understood only if it is read thoughtfully,
as one integral whole, and not as a mere collection of moral maxims, stories or
disjointed laws.
8 Lit., "follow thou its
recitation", i.e., its message as expressed in words. Since it is God who
reveals the Qur'an and bestows upon man the ability
to understand it, He attributes its "recitation" to Himself.
9 I.e., if the Qur'an
is read ''as it ought to be read" (see note 7 above), it becomes - as
stressed by Muhammad Abduh - "its own best
commentary".
10 Lit., "Who is a wizard [or
"a charmer"]?" A similar construction is found in 28:71 and 72.
11 Lit., "when shank is
wrapped around shank" - an idiomatic phrase denoting "the affliction
of the present state of existence. . . combined with
that of the final state" (Lane IV, 1471. quoting both the Qamus and the Taj
al-Arus). As pointed out by Zamakhshari,
the noun saq (lit., "shank")
is often used metaphorically in the sense of "difficulty",
"hardship" or "vehemence" (shiddah);
hence the well-known phrase, qamat al-harb ala saq, "the war
broke out with vehemence" (Taj al-Arus).
12 Lit., "towards thy Sustainer
will be the driving", i.e., with belated repentance (see next three
verses). The phrase rendered above as "at the time" reads, literally,
"on that day"; but the term yawm is
often used idiomatically in the sense of "time" regardless of its
duration.
13 This interpolation, necessary
for a full understanding of the sequence, is based on
14 Lit., "to his
people": i.e., to the arrogant belief, rooted in the materialism of his
social environment, that man is "self-sufficient" and, therefore, not
in need of any divine guidance (cf. 96:6).
15 I.e., without being held morally responsible for his doings.
16 For this rendering of sawwa, see note 1 on 87:2 and note 5 on 91:7.
The stress on God's creating man after he had been a germ-cell is a
metonym for His endowing the (originally) lowly organism with what is described
as a "soul".