سورة Al-Haaqqah ( The Inevitable )

The indubitable event!

And what is that indubitable event?

And what do you know what that indubitable event is?

The Thamud and the Ad denied the (possibility of a) sudden calamity, calling it false.

Then the Thamud were destroyed by an awesome upheaval;

and the Ad were destroyed by a furiously raging wind-storm

which He let loose upon them for seven nights and eight days in succession; so that (if you had been there) you might have seen people lying prostrate, as though they were uprooted trunks of hollowed palm trees.

Do you now see any trace of them?

Pharaoh and those before him and the people of the overturned habitations all engaged in the same great sin.

They did not follow the Messenger of their Lord, and so He seized them with a severe grip.

Verily when the water rose to great heights, We bore you upon a floating vessel (i.e. the Ark)

so that We might make it an instructive event for you, and retentive ears might preserve its memory.

So when the Trumpet is blown with a single blast

and the earth and the mountains are carried aloft and are crushed to bits at one stroke,

on that Day shall that indubitable event come to pass;

when the sky will be rent asunder, the grip holding it together having loosened on that Day,

and the angels will stand on the sides, with eight of them bearing aloft the Throne of your Lord on that Day.

That will be the Day when you shall be brought forth (before Allah) and no secret of yours shall remain hidden.

On that Day, he whose Record is given to him in his right hand will say: “Lo! Read my Record!

Verily I was sure that I would be handed over my account.”

Then he shall find himself in a life of bliss;

in a lofty Garden

the clusters of whose fruit will be hanging low to be within reach (of the inmates of Paradise).

(They will be told): “Eat and drink with good cheer as a reward for the good deeds you did in the days that have passed by.”

As for him whose Record will be given to him in his left hand, he will exclaim: “Would that I had never been given my Record,

and had not known my account.

Oh! Would that the death that came to me in the world had made an end of me!

My riches have not availed me,

and my authority has vanished.”

(A command will be issued): “Seize him and shackle him,

then cast him in the Fire,

then fasten him with a chain, seventy cubits long.

He would not believe in Allah, the Most Great;

nor would he urge the feeding of the poor.

Today he has been left here friendless;

and has no food except the filth from the washing of wounds,

which only the sinners will eat.”

But no; I swear by what you see,

and by what you do not see,

that this is the speech of an honourable Messenger,

not the speech of a poet. Little do you believe!

Nor is this the speech of a soothsayer. Little do you reflect!

It has been revealed by the Lord of the Universe.

And if he [i.e., the Prophets] had forged this Discourse and thereafter ascribed it to Us,

We would surely have seized him by the right hand,

and then severed his life vein;

and not one of you would have been able to withhold Us from doing so.

Surely it is a Good Counsel for the God-fearing.

We certainly know that some among you will give the lie to it,

and surely it will be a cause of regret for the unbelievers.

Certainly it is a Truth of absolute certainty.

So glorify the name of your Lord Most Great.