Surah Al-Ahqaf English Translation & Transliteration

¹Ha Mim.

²The sending down of this Book/the Quran is from Allah, who is absolutely supreme and exalted, and whose every judgment is right.

³We created the heavens, the earth, and everything between them only for a right/true purpose and for a set term. But the disbelievers who cover up the truths pay no heed to the warnings given to them.

⁴Say: —Will you look at those you place between yourselves and Allah and implore in prayer? Show me what they have created on the earth! Or do they have a share in the sovereignty of the heavens? If you are sincere in your claim, bring me a book revealed before this Quran, or some scientific evidence.

⁵And who is more astray than one who implores, placing them between himself and Allah, those who will not be able to answer his prayer until the Day of Resurrection and who are, moreover, unaware of the prayers made to them?

⁶When people are gathered together, those who were implored will become enemies to those who implored them, and will firmly reject the worship offered to them.

⁷Yet when Our verses were conveyed to them in all their clarity, the disbelievers who cover up the truths said of the truths that had come to them: "This is nothing but plain sorcery."

⁸Or do they say: "He invented this Quran himself"? Say: "If I had invented it of my own accord, then none of you could have saved me from Allah's punishment. For He knows the unseemly things you say about this revelation. Allah is sufficient as witness between me and you. For He is matchless in forgiveness and an infinite source of mercy."

⁹Say: —I am not the first of the messengers. Nor do I know what awaits me and you in the future. I follow only the Quran that is revealed to me. For I am nothing but a clear warner.

¹⁰Say: —Tell me: if this Quran is from Allah and you have refused to believe in it, and moreover a witness from the Children of Israel has testified that a messenger has come in this way and has believed in him, while you have been too proud to believe—in that case, have no doubt that Allah will not bring to their goals the wrongdoers who are arrogant toward His verses.

¹¹And the disbelievers who cover up the truths said of those who believe: —Had there been any good in this Quran, we would have believed in it first. Since they have no intention of finding the right path through this Quran, they say: "This is an invention of the ancients."

¹²Yet before this Quran there was the Book given to Moses as a guide and a mercy. So this Quran is a Book sent down in the Arabic language, both to confirm the truths that came before and to warn the wrongdoers who do injustice to it, and to give good news to those who obey and do good.

¹³Its good news is this: those who say "Our Lord is Allah" and then remain upright will have no fear, nor will they grieve.

¹⁴These are the people of Paradise; they will abide there as a reward for the good deeds they did.

¹⁵We have advised the human being to be good to his mother and father. For his mother carried him in her womb with much hardship and gave birth to him with much pain. And his bearing in the womb and his weaning take thirty months. At last, when this good child reaches full maturity and attains forty years, he says: "My Lord, enable me to give thanks for all the blessings You have bestowed on me and on my parents, and to do deeds that will please You; and make my descendants good and virtuous people. My Lord, I turn to You, and I am Your servant who has become a Muslim with all my being."

¹⁶Such people We will reward according to the best of what they did, We will forgive their evil deeds, and, in fulfillment of the promise given to them, We will count them among the people of Paradise.

¹⁷But there is also the child who rebukes his mother and father when they counsel him, saying: —Shame on you! Do you tell me that I will be raised again, when so many generations have come and gone before me? And when his parents, seeking refuge in Allah, say: "Look, my dear child, please do not ruin yourself; come to faith, for Allah's promise of resurrection will surely come true," he replies: "This is nothing but the legends of the ancients."

¹⁸Such people have joined the communities of humans and jinn before them against whom the sentence of punishment came true. All of them have surely lost.

¹⁹For there, everyone will have ranks according to what they did; they will be paid in full for their deeds, and no one will be wronged.

²⁰On the day the disbelievers who cover up the truths are exposed to the Fire, they will be told: "You used up all the good things you had in the life of this world and lived in pleasure and delight with them; but today you will be struck with a humiliating punishment, both because you strutted arrogantly in the world with no regard for anyone's rights and because you plunged into sin and strayed from the path."

²¹And remind them of Hud, the brother of Ad. Recall how he warned his people who lived in al-Ahqaf/the sand dunes. And many warners had come and gone before and after him, saying: "Serve none but Allah; otherwise I fear for you the punishment of that dreadful day."

²²They said: —Have you come to turn us away from our gods? If you are telling the truth, bring upon us at once the punishment you threaten us with!

²³Hud said: —Only Allah knows when this punishment will come. I only convey the message given to me, but I see that you are truly an ignorant people.

²⁴One day, when the people saw a dense bank of cloud approaching their valleys, they rejoiced, saying: —Here is a cloud bringing us rain. Hud said: —No. It is the very thing you wanted to come quickly: a whirlwind, a whirlwind laden with painful punishment!

²⁵And a whirlwind that will turn everything upside down by your Lord's command! In the end nothing was left but empty houses. This is how We punish a people steeped in guilt.

²⁶Indeed, We had given them many means such as We have given you, and equipped them with organs of hearing, sight, and understanding; but because they knowingly refused to believe in Allah's verses, their organs of hearing, sight, and understanding were of no use at all, and in the end the punishment they mocked closed in on them from every side.

²⁷Indeed, We also destroyed many other lands like these around you. Yet We had made Our verses known to them again and again in various ways, so that perhaps they would give up and turn back.

²⁸Why, then, did the gods they placed between themselves and Allah, so that these might bring them closer to Allah, not come to their aid when the punishment came? On the contrary, they forsook them. That belief was nothing but a slander they had invented and contrived.

²⁹Recall when We directed a group of jinn to you to listen to the Quran. When they came and began listening, they said to one another: "Be silent, let us listen." And when the recitation was over, they returned to their people to warn them,

³⁰and said: O our people, we have heard a message sent down after Moses, confirming the revelations before it, showing what is right and true, and guiding to the straight path.

³¹O our people, respond to this caller who calls to Allah's path. Believe and trust in Allah, so that He may forgive your sins and protect you from a painful punishment.

³²—For whoever does not respond to Allah's caller, let him know well that there is no one on the earth who can save him from Allah's punishment, and he will have no protectors besides Allah. Such people are in clear misguidance.

³³Do they not see that Allah, who created the heavens and the earth and was not wearied by creating them, has the power to bring the dead to life too? Certainly, Allah has power over all things.

³⁴On the day the disbelievers who cover up the truths are exposed to the Fire, when they are asked: —Is this not the truth, then? they will say: —Yes, by our Lord, it is the truth. Allah will say: —Then taste this punishment for covering up the truths!

³⁵So endure the hardships patiently, as the messengers endowed with resolve and steadfastness endured! And do not be in haste for their punishment. In any case, when the Hour they were promised comes upon them, it will seem to them as if they had lived in the world no more than an hour of a day. All this is a clear message. And are any destroyed but the people of transgressors who have strayed from the path?