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

O people! If you believe that the Last Hour, which will come to pass with a terror far beyond your comprehension, will surely come upon you, you will grasp the importance of the call being made in Allah’s name and turn to it.

The peoples of Thamud and Ad too, though they were warned, did not believe that with the Last Hour the Day of Resurrection, and after it the Day of Reckoning, would come. They opposed their prophets and mocked their call. So the people of Thamud were destroyed by a violent earthquake.

As for the people of Ad, they perished, destroyed by a howling, deafening gale.

Allah made that gale blow over them for seven nights and eight days; had you seen them, you would have seen them struck down and sprawled on the ground like the stumps of uprooted date palms. Now nothing at all is left of them.

Allah also struck with the punishment they deserved, and punished, Pharaoh, his people, and those before them who rejected the call, stubbornly persisted in their shirk and disbelief, and attacked the prophets and the Books that were sent.

When We made the waters rise and drowned those of Noah’s people who associated partners with Allah and denied the truth, We carried in the ship and saved your believing forefathers, who believed in Allah’s call.

We tell you these things so that you may use your reason and draw lessons from them, and keep them in mind, never to be forgotten.

When the Last Hour comes and the Trumpet is blown the first time, when the earth and the mountains are torn from their places, dashed against each other, and shattered, then on That Day what must happen will happen.

On that day the heavens will split apart, their systems will collapse and their order break down, and the angels on duty will stand at the edge of their ruins, awaiting their new tasks.

Your Lord, Possessor of the seat of sovereignty, of power and dominion, will on That Day of Resurrection and Reckoning charge eight mighty angels and have them bear the burden of That Day.

After That Day, people will be brought by the angels into their Lord’s presence and will give account as to whom they lived their worldly lives for, and by what standard; nothing of theirs will remain hidden or secret.

On the Day of Reckoning, those who believed in Allah’s call and lived their worldly lives accordingly will be given their records of account from their right side. One who attains this good news will say with joy, “I believed that one day I would face my reckoning, and I tried to live my life accordingly. Now, because of this, my Lord has granted me a brand-new, happy life in Paradise, the home of the Hereafter, amid magnificent beauties, with fruits hanging down from their branches.”

They will be told, “In return for the life you lived with faith and righteous deeds, eat and drink of the blessings of Paradise in peace.”

But those who in their worldly lives turned away from Allah’s call, opposed and resisted it, and did not believe in the Hereafter and the Day of Reckoning will be given their records of account from their left side. Such a person will cry out, “Alas! If only I had never been given this record of my deeds, never seen what is in it; if only death had been the end of everything! My wealth and property in the world have been of no use to me here; all my power, my sovereignty, my might have vanished.” At this Allah the Exalted will say to the angels in charge of Hell, “Bind him with a long chain and throw him into Hell, for though he was warned and invited, he took other lords and gods alongside Allah and turned away from the divine order he was invited to, and did not believe that he would be raised after death and give account. Moreover, he would not feed the poor, nor urge others to feed them. So today he has no deed to protect him from the punishment.”

The food and drink such people deserve in Hell will be pus.

By what you see and what you do not see: this Quran is a divine Book of call, conveyed to you in Allah’s name by a most noble messenger. It is not the word of a poet or a soothsayer. It has been sent by Allah, the Lord and God of all the worlds.

Had the Prophet made up words and spoken them in Our name, We would have seized him in an iron grip and then severed his jugular vein, and no one could have prevented it.

Without doubt this Quran has been sent to make known Allah’s purpose in creating the human being and the universe and how one should live in keeping with that purpose, and to counsel and warn about it.

Only those who reflect on the reason for their creation and for their being endowed with so many blessings can understand this truth; but many people will not use their reason, reflect, and accept the truth.

Those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth will surely feel remorse and suffer anguish for calling the Quran a lie and turning their backs on its call. For the Quran is truth itself.

So, O you who have grasped this truth and believed! Never let your Lord’s greatness slip from your minds; hold fast to His call and attain happiness in your worldly life and in the Hereafter.