Surah 75. Al-Qiyamah

I do swear by the Day of Judgment!

  - Mustafa Khattab

I do call to witness the Resurrection Day; ⁵⁸⁰⁹

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Cf. lxx. 40, and n. 5700. Here the point to be enforced is understood. The appeal is made to two considerations: (1) That every act has to be accounted for, and evil must have its recompense at the Resurrection; and (2) that man's own spirit has a conscience which would reproach him for sin, if he did not suppress that inner voice.

And I do swear by the self-reproaching soul!

  - Mustafa Khattab

And I do call to witness the self-reproaching spirit; (eschew Evil). ⁵⁸¹⁰

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Our doctors postulate three states or stages of the development of the human soul: (1) Ammara (xii. 53), which is prone to evil, and, if not checked and controlled, will lead to perdition; (2) Lawwama, as here, which feels conscious of evil, and resists it, asks for Allah's grace and pardon after repentance and tries to amend; it hopes to reach salvation; (3) Mutmainna (lxxxix 27), the highest stage of all, when it achieves full rest and satisfaction. Our second stage may be compared to Conscience, except that in English usage Conscience is a faculty and not a stage in spiritual development.

Do people think We cannot reassemble their bones?

  - Mustafa Khattab

Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones? ⁵⁸¹¹

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

The Unbelievers' usual cry is: "What! when we are reduced to bones and dust, how can our personality be called to account?" (xvii. 49). The answer is: Allah has said so, and He will do it; for the death here is not the end of all things.

Yes 'indeed'! We are 'most' capable of restoring 'even' their very fingertips.¹

  - Mustafa Khattab

 This refers to the fact that every human has a unique set of fingerprints.

Nay We are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers. ⁵⁸¹²

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

An idiom for the most delicate parts of his body.

Still people want to deny what is yet to come,

  - Mustafa Khattab

But man wishes to do wrong (even) in the time in front of him. ⁵⁸¹³

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

It is bad enough not to repent of past sins. But the evil-doer who rejects a Day of Reckoning and has no conscience wants to go on in his career of sin and jeopardise his future also.

asking 'mockingly', 'When is this Day of Judgment?'

  - Mustafa Khattab

He questions: "When is the Day of Resurrection?" ⁵⁸¹⁴

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

The question is sceptical or derisive. He does not believe that there is any chain of consequences in the Hereafter. He does not believe in a Hereafter.

But when the sight is stunned,

  - Mustafa Khattab

At length when the Sight is dazed ⁵⁸¹⁵

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

At the Hour of Judgment the full light and glory of the Lord will shine, and the effulgence will daze man's eyes. For the world as we knew it will go to pieces and a new World will come into being.

and the moon is dimmed,

  - Mustafa Khattab

And the moon is buried in darkness. ⁵⁸¹⁶

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Not only will man's sight be dazed, but the great luminaries themselves will lose their light. The moon with its present reflected light will then cease to shine. All reflected or relative truth or goodness will sink into nothing before the true and Etemal Reality.

and the sun and the moon are brought together,¹

  - Mustafa Khattab

 They both will rise from the west and lose their light.

And the sun and moon are joined together ⁵⁸¹⁷

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

To the moon the sun is the original light, but the sun itself is a created light, and it will sink into nothingness alongwith the moon. Both will be like empty shells "whose lights are fled, whose glories dead", because the Light of Allah now shines in full splendour in a new World. See n. 4344 to xxxix. 69.

on that Day one will cry, 'Where is the escape?'

  - Mustafa Khattab

That Day will Man say "Where is the refuge?"

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

But no! There will be no refuge.

  - Mustafa Khattab

By no means! No place of safety!

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

On that Day all will end up before your Lord.

  - Mustafa Khattab

Before thy Lord (alone) that Day will be the place of rest.

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

All will then be informed of what they have sent forth and left behind.

  - Mustafa Khattab

That Day will man be told (all) that he put forward and all that he put back. ⁵⁸¹⁸

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

All good and bad deeds, positive and negative, i.e., all sins of commission and omission, and all the good that a man did and all the evil that he omitted, all the influence that he radiated before him and all that he left behind him.

In fact, people will testify against their own souls,¹

  - Mustafa Khattab

 Their organs will testify against them. See 41:19-24.

Nay man will be evidence against himself ⁵⁸¹⁹

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Cf. xxiv. 24, and n. 2976: "On the Day when their tongues, their hands, and their feet will bear witness against them as to their actions. " It is not what a man says about himself, or what others say of him, that determines judgment about him. It is what he is in himself. His own personality betrays him or commends him.

despite the excuses they come up with.

  - Mustafa Khattab

Even though he were to put up his excuses.

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali