Surah Al-Isra English Translation & Transliteration

¹Free of all imperfection is Allah, who, to show/convey to him some of Our signs, took His servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to the farthest mosque/(al-Ji'rana), whose surroundings We have blessed. Surely it is He who hears everything and sees everything.

²Long ago We gave Moses the Book and made it a guide to the right path, saying: "O Children of Israel, take no one but Me as your Trustee!"

³And you, O descendants of those We carried in the ship with Noah! Noah was indeed a servant who gave abundant thanks to his Lord.

⁴Although We had made Our judgment known to the Children of Israel in that Book, "they spread corruption twice, and, swaggering insolently, committed great tyranny."

⁵When the time came for the punishment of the first of these, We set against you servants of Ours who were very strong and aggressive. They combed the land from end to end to destroy you, and so the promised punishment came to pass.

⁶Later, by giving you wealth and children, We strengthened you in power and numbers, and so made you prevail over them again.

⁷And We said: "If you do good, you will see its good outcome; but if you do evil, you will bear its evil outcome." Then, when the time for the last punishment came, it was so that they would enter that mosque as they had the first time and burn and destroy it, trample your honor and dignity underfoot, and plunder the land from end to end and raze it to the ground.

⁸It may be that your Lord will have mercy on you; but if you return to evil, We will return to punishing you. For We have made Hell a prison that encompasses such ungrateful disbelievers on every side.

⁹There is no doubt that this Quran guides to the soundest and most upright path.(1) And it gives the believers who do good and beneficial deeds the good news that there is a magnificent reward for them,(2)

¹⁰and that We have prepared a painful punishment for those who do not believe in the Hereafter.

¹¹The human being prays for his own harm, thinking he is praying for good. For the human being is very hasty!

¹²For We have made the night and the day two signs/marks of Our power. We remove the sign of the night and bring in its place the illuminating sign of the day, so that you may seek, by working and striving, your share of your Lord's bounty, and that you may count the years and reckon the passing days. Thus We explain everything in the fullest detail.

¹³For We record the deeds of every human being. On the Day of Resurrection We will bring them out as a book.

¹⁴And We will say: "Read your book! Today you yourself are enough to settle your own account."

¹⁵Whoever chooses the right path has entered it only for his own good. And whoever strays has strayed only to his own detriment.(1) For no one who bears responsibility bears the responsibility of another.(2) For We never punish any people until We have warned them by sending a messenger.(3)

¹⁶We make Our command known to a land; the pampered rich of that place, who do not carry out Our command, persist in rebellion and insolence in the land, and so deserve destruction. Then We raze that place to the ground, and Our law concerning them is fulfilled.

¹⁷Indeed, how many civilizations We have destroyed in this way since Noah!(1) For your Lord, who is aware of everything and sees everything, is sufficient to deal with His sinful servants.(2)

¹⁸Whoever forsakes the Hereafter and prefers the immediate—this world—We give him quickly here as much as We wish, to whomever We wish. Then We make Hell his abode; he will be cast into it, condemned and excluded from mercy.

¹⁹And whoever chooses the Hereafter and strives for it with all his effort, being a believer—the effort and striving of such people will be rewarded in the finest way.

²⁰Yet to all of them, both these and those, We already grant some of your Lord's blessings in this world. For your Lord's giving cannot be confined to any particular group.

²¹See how We have made them differ and excel one another in enjoying the blessings of this world! But superiority in the Hereafter is far greater, in both quality and quantity.

²²Never set up another god alongside Allah! Otherwise you will be left all alone, condemned and forsaken.

²³Your Lord has decreed that you serve none but Him, and that you treat your parents well. If one or both of them grow old in your care, do not say to them even "Ugh!" Do not scold them. Speak to them with kind words that win their hearts.

²⁴Moreover, lower to them the wing of humility out of tenderness, and pray: "My Lord, just as they nourished and raised me with mercy when I was small, now watch over them with Your mercy!"

²⁵Your Lord knows very well with what intention you treat your parents. If you are righteous and treat them well, then surely He is forgiving beyond description toward those who turn to Him.

²⁶Give relatives, the destitute, and the stranded traveler their due, but do not squander wastefully!

²⁷For those who squander turn out to be brothers of the devils. Do not forget that Satan is most ungrateful to his Lord.

²⁸If you cannot give them anything while you are awaiting mercy from your Lord, at least speak to them with kind words that win their hearts!

²⁹Be neither a tight-fisted miser nor a squanderer. Otherwise you will be blamed and full of regret; in that case you will become the subject of gossip and be left destitute.

³⁰For your Lord expands provision for whoever deserves it and restricts it/gives it in measure. Surely He is aware of every state of His servants; He sees them in every situation.

³¹Never kill your children for fear of poverty. For We provide for them and for you. Killing them is a great sin.

³²And never come near fornication. For it is a most shameful deed and a most evil path.

³³And never take a life that Allah has made inviolable, except for a just cause! Moreover, if anyone is killed unjustly, We have given his next of kin authority (to demand retaliation or compensation). But let him not go to excess in punishment; he has already been helped by being given that authority.

³⁴Do not come near the property of an orphan until he comes of age, except to do good and to make good use of it.(1) Keep your covenant/word. For a covenant/word given carries responsibility.(2)

³⁵When you measure something, give full measure, and when you weigh, weigh in full with a true balance. This is far more beneficial and best in its outcome.

³⁶And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge! For the ear, the eye, and the heart—each of these will be held responsible for it.

³⁷And never walk the earth with an arrogant swagger! For you can neither split the earth nor reach the mountains in height.

³⁸All of these are ugly things, displeasing in your Lord's sight.

³⁹These are among the words of wisdom your Lord has revealed to you. Never set up another god alongside Allah! Otherwise you will be cast into Hell, condemned and driven away.

⁴⁰So, "Your Lord has chosen sons for you and taken daughters for Himself from among the angels," is that it? You are truly saying something whose burden of guilt is enormous.

⁴¹Yet in this Quran We have expressed the truth again and again in different ways so that they may take admonition. But, as it turns out, these explanations only increase their aversion.

⁴²Say: "If there were other gods alongside Allah, as they claim, they would surely have sought a way to reach the Possessor of the seat of sovereignty and overpower Him."

⁴³For He is free of and far above all that they attribute to Him.

⁴⁴The seven heavens and the earth, and all the intelligent beings in them, glorify Him/move according to the law He has laid down. For there is nothing that does not glorify Him with praise/move according to His laws. But you cannot understand their glorification/their submission to the law. Even so, He is most forbearing and most forgiving.

⁴⁵When you recite the Quran, those who do not believe in the Hereafter draw a curtain between you and themselves.

⁴⁶Those who do not want to understand the Quran draw a veil over their hearts. They do not want to listen with their ears. When you proclaim the oneness of your Lord in the Quran, they turn their backs and flee in aversion.

⁴⁷For We know very well with what intent they listen to you when you recite the Quran, and that, when they whisper among themselves, those wrongdoers say: "You are only following a bewitched man."

⁴⁸Just look at what they attribute to you! And they stray so far that they can no longer possibly find the right path.

⁴⁹And they say: "When we have turned into a heap of bones and crumbled to mingle with the soil, are we really to be raised again in a new creation?"

⁵⁰Say to them: "Be stone or iron!"

⁵¹"Or turn into some being that you cannot even imagine being brought to life!" They will say: "Who will bring us back to life?" Say: "The One who created you the first time!" Thereupon they will shake their heads at you mockingly and say: "So when will that be?" Say: "Perhaps very soon!"

⁵²On the day He calls you, you will at once answer His call, praising Him. And you will think that you stayed in the world only a short while.

⁵³Tell My servants to say only what is best, for Satan tries to sow discord among them. Satan is undoubtedly a clear enemy to the human being.

⁵⁴Your Lord knows very well what you deserve. If He sees you as fit for His mercy, He will have mercy on you; if He sees you as deserving His punishment, He will punish you. For We have not sent you as their guardian.

⁵⁵For your Lord knows best all who are in the heavens and on the earth. We have made some prophets excel others, each with different qualities. In this vein, We gave David the Psalms (Zabur).

⁵⁶Say: "Call on those you consider close to Allah when you fall into hardship, and see! They have no power either to remove the hardship from you or to turn it into good!"

⁵⁷Yet those whom they implore in prayer—whichever of them they think is closest to Allah—themselves seek a way to come nearer to their Lord. They hope for His mercy and fear His punishment. For your Lord's punishment is truly fearsome.

⁵⁸There is no community that We have not either destroyed before the Day of Resurrection or punished severely. This is written in the Book/on the earth in the form of ruins.

⁵⁹That the earlier peoples denied them did not stop Us from sending signs. We gave Thamud the she-camel as a clear miracle, but they slaughtered her mercilessly, defying Our command and wronging themselves. For We send signs only to warn and to instill fear.

⁶⁰Recall when We said to you: "Your Lord encompasses all people with His knowledge." We made the vision We showed you, and the tree cursed in the Quran, a means of testing people. We warn them and put fear into them, but this only increases their great transgression.

⁶¹Recall when We said to the angels: "Prostrate for Adam/place yourselves at his command!"—they all prostrated except Iblis. Iblis said: "Shall I prostrate to one You created from clay?"

⁶²He said: "Is this the one You have found to hold above me? If You grant me respite until the Day of Resurrection, I will lead all his descendants astray, all but a few, and bring them under my command and control!"

⁶³Allah said: "Get out of My presence! Whoever of them follows you—Hell is the punishment for you all, a full and complete punishment!"

⁶⁴Go now, and lure with your whisperings whomever of them you can; attack them with your cavalry and your infantry; become a partner in their wealth and children, and make them all kinds of promises! Do not forget that Satan's promises are nothing but deception.

⁶⁵"Know well that you will have no real power over My sincere servants. For your Lord is sufficient as Trustee."

⁶⁶Your Lord is the One who makes the ships sail on the seas for you, so that you may seek your share of His grace and generosity. For He is most merciful toward you.

⁶⁷When you face danger at sea, those you place between yourselves and Allah and implore in prayer abandon you and vanish; only He remains. But when He saves you and brings you to land, you turn away from Him. For the human being is very ungrateful.

⁶⁸Do you, then, have any guarantee that Allah will not make the earth swallow you up on land, or send against you a whirlwind raining down stones? Then you would find no protector to rely on and trust other than Him.

⁶⁹Or do you have any guarantee that He will not send you back to sea another time and, when He does, send fierce whirlwinds against you for your ingratitude and drown you in the waters? Then you would find no one to stand up for you against Us.

⁷⁰Indeed, We have valued the Children of Adam and honored them. We have given them means of transport on land and sea, provided them with clean and good things, and so made them superior to much of what We have created.

⁷¹On that day We will summon all people along with their leaders. Those who are given their book from the right—they will read their books and will not be wronged in the slightest.

⁷²Whoever acts blind to Our verses in this world will be blind in the Hereafter too, and in an even worse state.

⁷³They had almost lured you away from the Quran We revealed to you, so that you would invent things in Our name and thus slander Us; and in that case they would have taken you as a Khalil/close friend.

⁷⁴Had We not kept you firm, you would have inclined toward them, if only a little.

⁷⁵In that case We would have made you taste the pain of life and of death many times over. Then you would have found no one to help you against Us.

⁷⁶Those who failed in this almost turned your world upside down to drive you out of your homeland. In that case they too would have remained there only a little while after you.

⁷⁷For this is the law applied to the messengers We sent before you. You will find no change in the application of Our sunnah/law.

⁷⁸Perform your prayer from the time the sun begins to decline toward the west until the darkness of night falls. And pay special attention to the morning recitation; there is no doubt that the morning recitation comes when perception is at its clearest.

⁷⁹And in the night, breaking your sleep, perform the prayer/the recitation that is voluntary for you! Perhaps your Lord will bring you to a position/to Medina where you will be held in the highest honor.

⁸⁰Say: "My Lord, let me arrive where I am going in contentment, and let me leave where I am departing from in contentment, and grant me from Yourself a power and strength to support me."

⁸¹And say: "The truth has come, and falsehood has vanished. Falsehood is bound to vanish in any case."

⁸²We send down from the Quran healing and mercy for the believers.(1) But for those who do not believe in this Quran, it only adds to their loss.(2)

⁸³Whenever We let the human being taste a blessing, he turned away and held himself aloof. And when evil touches him, he falls into despair.

⁸⁴Say: "Everyone acts in accordance with their own choices. Your Lord surely knows best which of you is more rightly guided."

⁸⁵They ask you about the Ruh/revelation. Say: "The Ruh/revelation is under my Lord's command. Of that infinite source of knowledge you have been given only a little."

⁸⁶Had We willed, We could certainly have taken away all that We have revealed to you. Then you would have found no helper to bring it back to you against Us.

⁸⁷That this has not happened is only out of your Lord's mercy toward you. For His grace and generosity toward you are very great.

⁸⁸Say: "Truly, even if all beings, seen and unseen, were to come together to produce the like of this Quran—even if they were to back one another up—they could never produce anything like it."

⁸⁹Indeed, in this Quran We have set out the truth to people again and again in various ways. Even so, most people's turning away from these truths is nothing but ingratitude.

⁹⁰And they even go so far as to say: "We will never believe in you until you make springs gush forth from the ground for us,"

⁹¹"or you have gardens of date palms and grapes and make rushing rivers flow through them,"

⁹²"or you make the sky fall upon us in pieces, as you claim, or bring Allah and the angels before us face to face,"

⁹³"or you have a mansion of gold, or you ascend into the sky. But we will never believe that you have ascended unless you bring down to us from there a tangible book that we can read." Say: "Far be it! Only my Lord is infinite in power. What am I but a human messenger of limited strength?"

⁹⁴When guidance came to them, the only thing that prevented people from believing in it/the Quran was their objection: "Has Allah sent a human being as a messenger?"

⁹⁵Say: "If there were angels strolling about at ease on the earth, We would have sent down to them from the sky an angel as a messenger."

⁹⁶Say: "Allah is sufficient as a witness between me and you. For He is aware of every state of His servants and sees them."

⁹⁷Whoever follows the Quran, Allah's guide, has found the right path. And whoever chooses misguidance—you will find for them no protectors/friends to defend them against Allah. And on the Day of Resurrection We will bring them to the place of Gathering blind, mute, and deaf, crawling on their faces. Their abode is Hell; whenever its fire begins to die down, We will stoke up its blazing flames.

⁹⁸That is their punishment, because they did not believe in Our verses and said: "When we have become a heap of bones and mingled with dust and soil, are we really to be raised again in a new creation?"

⁹⁹Do they not consider that Allah, who created the heavens and the earth, has the power to create the like of them, and that He has appointed for them a term whose end, without any doubt, will one day come? Yet these wrongdoers' turning away from the truths is nothing but disbelief.

¹⁰⁰Say: "If you possessed the treasuries of my Lord's mercy, you would share them with no one, for fear they would run out. For the human being has always been very stingy."

¹⁰¹Indeed, We gave Moses nine clear signs. Ask the Children of Israel! When Moses came to them with these proofs/miracles, Pharaoh said to him: "O Moses, I think you are certainly bewitched!"

¹⁰²Moses said to him: "You know very well that none but the Lord of the heavens and the earth has sent all these down as proofs that bring awareness. And I, O Pharaoh, think that you are finished!"

¹⁰³At last Pharaoh decided to root them all out. So We drowned him and all who were with him in the sea.

¹⁰⁴Then We said to the Children of Israel: "Settle in the land in security; but when the promise of the Hereafter comes true, We will gather you all together before Us."

¹⁰⁵We have sent down this Quran with the truth, and with the truth it has come down.(1) As for you, We have sent you only as a bearer of good news and a warner.(2)

¹⁰⁶And We have sent down this Quran in parts, so that you may recite it to people over a long period. For this reason We have sent this revelation down to you gradually.

¹⁰⁷Say: "Believe in this revelation, the Quran, or do not believe! It is a fact that those who were given divine knowledge before this fall down on their faces in prostration as soon as Our verses are recited to them."

¹⁰⁸And they say: "How exalted is the glory of our Lord; we bow to Him! Our Lord's promise concerning the final message has now been fulfilled."

¹⁰⁹Weeping, they fall down on their faces in prostration again, and the verses recited increase their reverence and devotion.

¹¹⁰Say: "Call on Him as Allah, or call on Him as the Most Merciful (ar-Rahman).(1) By whichever of these names you implore Him, all the beautiful names belong to Allah.(2) But in your supplication/prayer neither raise your voice nor lower it altogether; take a course between the two.(3)"

¹¹¹"All praise belongs to Allah, who has taken no child, who has no partner in His sovereignty, and who, never being helpless, has no need of any guardian, friend, or helper," say.(1) And glorify His greatness as He deserves, declaring "Allahu akbar"!(2)