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

With the coming of the Last Hour, the moon will be split.

O Prophet! Even if, by Allah’s permission, you were to show those who associate partners with Allah a miracle, they would say, “This is nothing but magic and sleight of hand,” and they would not believe in your prophethood, in the call you make in Allah’s name, or in the coming of the Day of Resurrection.

For they want to live life according to their own whims and fancies. That is why they will not accept the call of the Quran and call it a lie. But in the end they will see and understand the truth.

In fact, they had heard what befell those before them who turned away from the warnings given through prophets and books, and had listened to their cautionary tales as well.

Now a divine book has come that would free them from servitude to fellow human beings and bring them to a life of honor, dignity, and virtue; yet despite this, counsel is of no use.

So now you too turn away from them and keep your distance; when the time comes, they will be summoned to give account on the Day of Resurrection, in which they do not believe and which they so dislike.

On that Day, in fear and terror, their eyes all but bursting from their sockets, they will come out of their graves and scatter about like swarms of locusts; and then, as they hurry toward the angel calling them, they will moan and lament, saying, “This is a very hard day.”

Long ago the people of Noah, too, had called their prophet a liar, accused him of insanity besides, and tried to obstruct his call. Noah, left helpless, prayed, “My Lord, I am defeated now, I am worn out! Help me against these people who associate partners with You and disbelieve.”

Thereupon We opened the gates of the sky and poured down water in torrents, and made water gush from the earth. Thus We brought about a flood, struck those who turned away from acknowledging Allah as God with the punishment they deserved, and destroyed them by drowning.

But Noah We carried under Our watchful eye in a ship made of planks and nails, and saved him. This was a reward for Noah, and for his people, who associated partners with Allah, the punishment they deserved in this world.

We are making known this event that befell the people of Noah so that a lesson may be learned from it; so is there anyone who will take the lesson?

Just think how it ended for those who were ungrateful for Allah’s call and rebelled against it, and who oppressed His prophet.

We have made this Quran easy, so that Our purpose in creating the human being, and the way of life in keeping with that purpose, may be clearly known and understood, and so that counsel may be taken and lessons drawn. So is there no one who will take heed?

The people of Ad, too, called a lie the call their prophet made in Allah’s name, stopped their ears to his warnings, and deserved punishment, and they too saw what Allah’s punishment is like. On a pitch-black day We sent a violent windstorm upon them and laid them low like trees torn up by the roots.

Such was the ruinous end of those who paid no heed to Allah’s warnings and called their prophets liars.

We have made this Quran easy to understand so that counsel may be taken and lessons drawn from what it tells, and so that you may reflect and turn to what is right.

The people of Thamud, too, rejected their prophet Salih’s call to an Allah-centered system and morality, and said, “What, are we to follow what is said by someone no different from us, and give up the system and morality we have had for so many years? If we follow him, we will have made a mistake and our situation will deteriorate. Everything we have will be turned upside down. Besides, was there no one among us but him to be given prophethood, that it was given to him? He is a liar claiming to be a prophet; if this claim of his is true, let him show us a miracle and prove it.”

And Allah said to His prophet Salih, “Tomorrow they will see who the liar is. Warn them by telling them that they will be tested with a she-camel whose owner is Allah, and that it is Allah’s command that from now on, at the place where the animals are watered, they must drink in turn: one day this camel, and one day the other animals.”

When this news reached the rulers at their head, one of them came to the water and savagely killed the camel that had been sent to test them.

Thereupon Allah, with a violent blast that shook them, turned that people, by whom the warning and the call had been ignored and called a lie, into rotten wood shavings crumbled to dust.

Through these examples We have made the Quran easy to keep in mind; will you still not draw lessons from them?

The people among whom Lot lived called the call a lie despite the counsel and warnings, paid it no heed, and disregarded it. So We razed them to the ground with a storm of calamity in the hours before dawn, while those who accepted the call We saved together with Lot.

Yet Lot had again and again invited them to live by the divine system and morality that is the reason for their creation, had warned them, and had made known that only in this way could they protect themselves from Allah’s punishment. But they met these warnings with doubt and did not believe.

This transgressing people, who associated partners with Allah and paid no heed to the warning and call of their prophet Lot, went further still: they harassed the guests who came to Lot’s house and demanded that Lot hand his guests over to them. So We seized this frenzied, unrestrained people, who would not use their reason, with a terrible punishment early in the morning and destroyed them. Thus they saw what the importance of the warning and the call was.

Through these stories We have made the Quran easy, so that it may be kept in mind, thoroughly understood, and taken as a lesson. So let those who wish to learn a lesson reflect on them.

Pharaoh and his people, too, had been invited and warned by their prophet to live a life with Allah at its center. They, too, called a lie the call their prophet made in Allah’s name and did not accept it. So We, by Our power, struck them too with the punishment they deserved. They too saw what it means to rebel against the purpose for which Allah, who created the human being for a purpose and endowed him with so many blessings, created him, and to be ungrateful and to oppose it.

O you who turn away from the call to the truth! Now just think about it. Are you mightier than those whose stories have been told, or more valuable in Allah’s sight? Or do you have in your hands a document declaring your immunity? Or do you think, “We are a very powerful body, united as one against Allah; nothing will happen to us, no one can overpower us”? Yet you too, like all those before you who associated partners with Allah and disbelieved, will look for a place to escape Allah’s punishment, but you will not find one.

Their real punishment, however, will begin with the Day of Resurrection. That Day will be a terrible, dreadful day for them. (Those who refused to recognize the limits Allah has set and set limits of their own) will receive the recompense for having rebelled against Allah by being dragged face down into the fire of Hell.

We prepare everything for a purpose, together with the conditions under which that purpose can be realized, determining its rules and establishing its order; and when We wish it to be, We simply say to it, “Be,” and it comes into being in the blink of an eye.

O you who turn away, although We have invited you to live an Allah-centered life! When it has been made known to you how those before you were destroyed because of this stance of theirs, will you still stop your ears to the warnings and not draw lessons from what befell them?

All your deeds in your worldly lives, theirs and yours, whatever there is, small or great, are recorded in your records of deeds and will be brought before you in the Hereafter.

But those who believe in Allah’s call and strive to fulfill their responsibilities will be in the gardens of Paradise, beside rivers, in the presence of their Lord.