Surah Al-Hajj: Thematic English Translation (Mustafa Çevik)

O people! Fulfill your responsibility toward Allah, who created you and endowed you with so many blessings, without taking any god besides Him. So protect yourselves from the punishment of the most terrible quake of the Final Hour.

From the terror of that Day a mother nursing her infant will forget that the one in her arms is her child, fling it away, and be taken up with saving herself, and a pregnant woman will miscarry. You will see people on that Day out of their senses, like drunkards who do not know what they are doing, though they are not drunk; but the punishment in Hell will be far more terrible than this, for Allah’s punishment is very severe.

This being so, some people, though they have no knowledge, argue and talk recklessly about Allah, and turn to living the orders of life to which Satan, grown arrogant and unruly, and those who have become satanic invite.

The truth is that such beings will drag along with them into Hell those who take them as friends.

O people! If you are in doubt that you will be raised again after death, know well that We created you first from earth, then from a drop of seminal fluid, then from a fertilized egg that We made cling to the wall of the womb, then turned it into a lump of flesh and brought its development to maturity over time. By this We make known to you the boundless greatness of Allah’s knowledge and power, so that you may understand that We are able to raise you easily after your death as well. Then We keep in the mother’s womb what We will to be born, for a term We have set, then bring it into the world as a baby and bring it to maturity. Some of you are made to taste death at an early age, and some in old age, the age of infirmity… Those who reach old age become unable to know or remember what they knew before.

As for how you will be raised after death, reflect, too, by looking at how We bring the earth to life and make it swell with the rain We send down when it is parched, and how We create every kind of plant on it. All this plainly shows to those who wish to grasp Allah as He deserves that it is Allah alone who has power to create and to raise after death.

Allah is the Creator, the one true Lord (Owner) of His creation, the only God who establishes its order.

O people! Have no doubt: the Final Hour will surely come, and Allah will raise up everyone who has mixed with the earth and bring them face to face with their reckoning. Many, despite what is made known through the Quran, and though they have no other Book in their hands to show the right path, keep arguing without knowledge and trying to keep others from the call too. These will live their worldly lives in disgrace and shame, and on the Day of Resurrection and Reckoning they will be condemned to a scorching, burning punishment.

On that day they will be told, “This penalty is the recompense for what you sent ahead and deserved by your own choice; Allah never wrongs His servants.”

Among people there are also some who, though they say they have believed in Allah’s call, worship and obey Allah wavering between faith, shirk, and disbelief. If they stand to gain some worldly benefit by appearing to be believers, they appear as believers; but when they are tried with some difficulty or hardship, they at once give up what they said they believed. Such people are the losers both in their worldly lives and in the Hereafter; this is the true loss.

To escape their troubles, instead of holding fast to Allah’s call and seeking the remedy in His help, they look for help from those who can do them no good and have no power to save them from the trouble that has befallen them. Yet from those whose help they seek they suffer harm instead of benefit, and their straying grows all the greater.

And those who strive heart and soul to live by the order of life that is Allah’s call, Allah will reward with blessings in Gardens through which rivers flow. Allah surely fulfills His promise.

Whoever lives in doubt that Allah will help him in this world and the Hereafter, and does not trust Allah, let him rise up to the sky and look for someone there to help him. Since this will not be possible, let him return to the truth that a person can have no friend and helper but Allah.

We have sent down this Quran as clear verses, with parables, lessons to be drawn, proofs and knowledge, so that people may know Allah as He deserves.

Whoever wishes to understand the truth of the universe and of life and to learn how to live, Allah brings to what is right through the Quran.

On the Day of Resurrection and Reckoning Allah will pass His judgment on those who believe, and on those who associate partners with Him, and those who chose and lived Judaism, the Sabian faith (star worship), Christianity, and Magianism. Allah is witness to everyone’s choice.

O people! Seeing and reflecting that the heavens, the earth, and everything between them, the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, the animals, all things living and lifeless, carry out their tasks in harmony with one another, subject to the laws of the orders Allah has established for them (they prostrate), some of you choose to be believers, while many turn their backs on these and choose to associate partners with Allah and deny the truth, and deserve punishment. For this reason there is no one to save those who deserve to be abased, despised, and humiliated from the state they have fallen into in this world and the Hereafter. Allah has power to do whatever He wills.

Between those who accept Allah alone as Lord and God and those who take others than Him as lord and god there is, at all times and in all places, a conflict over whether truth or falsehood will rule. Those who rebel against Allah’s call will be clothed in garments of fire in Hell, and boiling water will be poured over their heads. Their skins and inner organs will melt and rot; they will be punished with iron maces and whips. Whenever they try to escape this unbearable punishment they will be driven back and told, ‘There is no way out of here; struggle no more in vain!’

But those who strive heart and soul to make the Islamic order of life prevail, Allah will settle in Gardens through which rivers flow, the home of blessings, and they will be clothed in silk garments adorned with gold and pearls. The reason for these gifts is that they heeded Allah’s call and chose what accords with their innate nature.

Let those who turn away from Allah’s call and try to turn others away from it too, and who, as if that were not enough, make the Kaaba cease to be the place where the order and morality of Islam are learned and try to bar those who come there, know well that a very severe punishment awaits them in Hell.

When We showed Abraham the site of the Kaaba so that he might build and revive it, We said to him: “The truth those who come here must learn should be to establish on the earth an order whose rules Allah has set and to live by its morality. Keep the Kaaba free of shirk, disbelief, and every material and spiritual impurity for those who come to worship Allah and submit, standing, bowing, and prostrating. Invite people to the Hajj and proclaim these qualities of the Kaaba; let them come to perform the Hajj on foot or on their mounts, from far away too, and on appointed days let them sacrifice their animals, invoking Allah’s name over them, in thanks to Allah for showing them the right path. Let them eat of the meat of these sacrifices themselves and offer it to the needy in hardship. Then let them end the prohibitions they must observe for the Hajj and complete their worship by circling the Kaaba.”

Whoever consciously fulfills his responsibilities toward Allah within the limits He has set, it is for his own good.

O believers! The meat of animals other than those you have been told are unlawful to eat has been made lawful for you.

So, just as you guard against eating what Allah has forbidden, guard also against seeking help from idols and against telling lies. Show your determination to live as believers cleansed of shirk and disbelief and submitted to Allah. And whoever stubbornly goes on living taking other gods alongside Allah, his case is like a carcass that falls from the sky and is torn apart and eaten by birds of prey, or scattered hither and thither by the wind.

And whoever abides by the laws of the order of Islam, whose rules Allah has set, and respects its symbols, this shows his sincerity and his taqwa.

Until the time when the sacrificial animals, the symbols of the Hajj, are to be sacrificed, you may lawfully benefit from their milk, their wool, their strength, and their young. Then you may sacrifice them at the Masjid al-Haram as an expression of your thanks to your Lord, who has brought you to the right path.

To every community We prescribed sacrifice as a symbol of worship of Allah. To this end, when they slaughter the animals We have created as provision for them, let them invoke Allah’s name over them. Do not forget that your God is Allah alone. So strive to carry out fully what He commands.

O Prophet! Give the good news of Paradise to those who submit wholeheartedly to Allah’s commands. Whenever Allah’s name is mentioned, the hearts of such believers tremble with reverence and they at once become attentive. In the calamities that befall them they take refuge in Allah’s help and hold out patiently, without compromising their faith or losing hope; they spend in the way of His good pleasure from the blessings Allah has given them, and perform their prayers scrupulously and consciously.

You may also sacrifice large livestock (camels and cattle). There is good for you in their sacrifice; when they are lined up in rows to be sacrificed, invoke Allah’s name over them; when, with one foreleg tied, they kneel to be slaughtered, slaughter them proclaiming Allah’s greatness in His name; and when they fall on their sides and die, eat of their meat and give to the poor as well. We have made this a symbol of your thanks to Allah; there are many benefits in it for you. Neither their flesh nor their blood reaches Allah; what will reach Him is only your sincerity toward Allah’s commands and your effort to fulfill your responsibilities. Allah has placed these sacrificial animals at your service for your benefit. Fulfilling what your thanks requires, because Allah has brought you to live by the order of life that accords with your innate nature, never let the greatness of His knowledge and power slip from your minds.

Allah protects those who believe against the wicked and against evil, and He does not love those who are ungrateful for the many blessings He gives.

Permission to fight against oppression has been given to the believers who are attacked unjustly. Allah certainly has power to help the believers and give them victory over those who associate partners with Him and deny the truth.

The believers were driven out of their homes only because they said, “Our Lord is Allah,” and wished to live by the order and morality of Islam. Had Allah not given them permission to fight in this situation and left them defenseless, then monasteries, synagogues, churches, and mosques, built so that Allah might be remembered much in them, that it might be taught there that He alone is God, and that people might be invited to the right path (al-sirat al-mustaqim), would have been destroyed and gone.

Allah will surely help those who strive heart and soul to live and keep alive the order that is the reason for their creation. Allah’s power suffices for everything. The right to establish an order (religion) and lay down laws for His servants belongs to Him alone.

If We give the believers who were driven out of their homes a homeland and grant them power, then, without growing conceited, unruly, or ungrateful, they perform their prayers scrupulously, pay their zakat consciously and willingly, enjoin what is right, forbid evil, and continue to give thanks to their Lord.

O Muhammad! If your people go on refusing to accept your prophethood and calling your call a lie, you should know that before you the people of Noah, of Ad and Thamud, the people of Abraham and of Lot, and the folk of Midian also called their prophets liars. Moses too was called a liar by Pharaoh and his men.

I gave these people time to return to the order of life that was their prophets’ call and to take the right path. Then I seized with My punishment those who stubbornly persisted in shirk and disbelief. So they saw what it means to be ungrateful and deny the truth.

In the past We destroyed many communities that rejected the call the prophets made in Allah’s name and adopted as their way of life the orders set up jointly by Satan and satanic people. Their wells lie abandoned, their palaces are in ruins, and their cities are gone.

As you pass through the lands on which the communities We destroyed with Our punishment for stubbornly rejecting Allah’s call once lived, ought you not to reflect on their end and take heed? But alas, it is not only the ears that go deaf and the eyes that go blind; what truly goes blind is the hearts within the breasts.

O Prophet! Those who deny the truth without reflection say to you of the punishment they are warned and threatened with, “Let it come at once, so that we may see it.” Let them know well that Allah never goes back on His word. Never let it slip from your minds that that punishment will surely befall you one day.

Know also that a day with your Lord is a thousand years by your reckoning.

There were many cities whose people refused to live by the order of life that is Allah’s call; I gave them respite to return to the right path, and when their time ran out I seized in an iron grip those who persisted in shirk and disbelief and punished them with My punishment.

Never let it slip from your minds that in the end everyone will surely be gathered in Our presence and called to account for the way of life they chose.

O Prophet! Say to people: “I am a messenger of Allah, a clear warner, who invites you to live by the order and morality that is the reason for your creation. Allah will reward those who believe in this call and fulfill their responsibilities with the blessings of Paradise of matchless beauty.”

But those who try to keep people away from Our verses and to distort their meaning and divert them from their essence will be condemned to the fire of Hell.

O Prophet! While you and the prophets We sent before you made the call in Allah’s name, Satan and his companions tried to mix other words into Allah’s verses in order to divert the call from its true purpose and confuse people’s minds. But Allah brought this effort of theirs to nothing, and so the prophets conveyed Allah’s verses true to their purpose, consistent within themselves, and explaining one another. Allah alone knows and makes known the one absolute truth of everything.

Only those inclined to associate partners with Allah and deny the truth follow the false beliefs and ways of life that satanic people, who follow Satan’s whisperings, put forward by tearing Allah’s verses from their true purpose and corrupting them. These are in deep error. Allah’s permitting this is a requirement of the test.

Satan’s whisperings and the lies invented by satanic people cannot cast doubt on those who believe in Allah wholeheartedly and submit to His call, nor turn them from their way. The hearts of those who turn to Allah sincerely and wholeheartedly have found satisfaction and peace in the verses that have come from their Lord and been conveyed to them.

Surely Allah strengthens the understanding of those who turn to Him wholeheartedly, makes it easy for them to understand the truth, and brings them to His right path.

Those who persist in shirk and disbelief and have conditioned themselves to deny the truth will go on doubting the Quran, and this attitude of theirs will not change, until the Final Hour comes and the Resurrection suddenly knocks at their door. But when that Day comes, they will see and understand that the right to govern people by the order of life to which He invites belongs to Allah alone. Yet understanding the truth will be of no use to them at all, and so they will be punished with the humiliating punishment they deserve. But those who live by the order and morality that is Allah’s call and strive to keep it alive will be settled in Gardens, the home of blessings, and rewarded.

Those who suffered oppression because they believed in the call the Prophet made in Allah’s name, and emigrated from their homes, and were killed in this cause or died a natural death, Allah will provide for in Paradise with the finest of blessings.

Allah is the best of providers. He will settle the believers in the finest places in Paradise and bring them to happiness. Allah is the Possessor of boundless knowledge and power. He knows best who is worthy of what and of where.

These, then, are Allah’s rulings concerning the believers and concerning those who associate partners with Him and deny the truth. Whoever is wronged and responds in equal measure, and is then attacked again, Allah will surely help the one attacked. But if the one attacked pardons the attacker, Allah loves the one who pardons and forgives his sins.

Allah’s power suffices for everything. He shortens the night and adds it to the day, and shortens the day and adds it to the night. Allah hears the prayer of those who are wronged and sees everything.

Allah’s knowledge and power are infinite, and He alone is worthy of obedience. Expecting help and justice from false, invented orders other than the order and morality that is His call increases a person’s loss, makes him serve other servants, and brings him to humiliation.

Allah knows the absolute truth of everything and is the One who alone is exalted.

O human being! Seeing how Allah brings the earth to life with the rain He sends down from the sky and adorns it with beauties beyond description, can you not reflect on the beauties that the call He makes through the Book He has sent down for you will bring into your life? Allah is the Possessor of infinite grace and the Subtle (Latif); He makes, creates, and puts in its proper place the most perfect of everything. Allah is the one true Owner of the heavens and the earth; He has no need of anything or anyone. He alone is worthy of every praise, and everything is in need of Him.

Everything in the heavens and on the earth carries out its tasks within the bounds of the order Allah has established and the laws He has laid down. It is Allah who makes ships sail on the seas bound by His laws and places them at your service, and who has made the laws by which the sky does not fall upon the earth. Looking at these, do you not see the perfection of the order to which He invites you? Allah is most merciful and compassionate toward His servants, and that is why He offers them an order and morality by which they will be happy.

Allah, who created you, furnished you with limbs and organs, and gave you life, will cause you to die when the time comes, then raise you and call you to account for the way you lived your worldly life. Surely the person who does not grasp this is very ignorant and ungrateful.

To every community We have issued the call, through a prophet and a Book, to live by the order of life that is the reason for their creation. O Prophet! Do not let those who associate partners with Allah draw you into empty and meaningless arguments on this matter. Go on inviting them to your Lord’s path. If they persist in arguing with you, say to them: “Allah knows full well with what intentions you stir up arguments. For your attitude toward the call you keep arguing about and avoid responding to, you will receive the recompense you deserve on the Day of Reckoning.”

Do not forget that Allah is aware of all that happens in the heavens and on the earth, and that what you do is being recorded. That is very easy for Allah.

Despite all these truths, those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth take other gods alongside Him, interfere in His right to govern His servants, and associate partners with Him. Yet Allah has given no one but Himself the authority to establish an order over His servants. On the Day of Reckoning no one can save such people and their followers from Allah’s punishment.

Whenever Allah’s verses are recited to them, anger at once appears on the faces of those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth. They breathe fire at anyone who invites them to follow Allah’s verses and are ready to set upon him. Say to them: “Shall I tell you of something worse than this fire you breathe, something that truly breathes fire? It is the fire of Hell, which Allah has promised to those like you who associate partners with Him and deny the truth. On that Day there will be a very evil confrontation.”

O people! Reflect carefully on this parable now being set before you. Those you take as gods besides Allah could not create even a fly, even if they all came together. And if a fly snatched something from them, they could not take it back from the fly. See, this is the state of those you follow and whose orders you obey, taking them as gods. Despite this, they do not wish to grasp Allah as He deserves, nor to see the greatness and infinity of His power and knowledge.

Allah is the Possessor of supreme judgment and wisdom, and His power suffices for everything.

Allah chooses messengers from among the angels and from among people, and He hears everything, sees everything, and knows everything. Allah knows what has happened in the past and what will happen in the future, and He makes the final decision in all matters.

O you who believe! Bow and prostrate to Allah consciously and willingly, and do righteous deeds that will please your Lord, so that you may attain happiness.

Strive your utmost with your wealth and your lives for the sake of living in Allah’s way. Allah has laid on you no hardship in religion in living so. So hold fast to the order of Islam, which was also the religion of your father Abraham. Allah has given the name Muslims to those who adopt as their religion the way of life He made known through the Books and prophets He sent. In the prophets there are fine examples for you in this. You too be fine examples and models for people; perform your prayers scrupulously and pay your zakat.

Your one true Lord, God, protector, and helper is Allah.