Surah An-Nazi'at: Thematic English Translation (Mustafa Çevik)

By the Quran, made up of verses that uproot shirk and disbelief and put the truths in their place, and by those who turn living by Allah’s call into a race: the Day of Resurrection and Reckoning will surely come.

On That Day, at the first blast of the Trumpet, the earth will be shaken with a most violent shaking; then, at the second blast, the dead will be raised; hearts will pound as if about to leap from their places, and eyes, weary, exhausted, and ashamed, will be cast down to the ground.

Those who deny the truth without a moment’s thought, though they have been warned that they will meet this day, still mock, saying, “After we have died and become heaps of bones, are we to be raised again and restored to our former state? If so, we are done for.”

Let them go on mocking; yet for them to be raised, a single blast of the Trumpet by Allah’s command will suffice. And lo, there they are, gathered at the place of assembly to give account.

O Prophet! Do not grieve for those who do not believe in the Day of Resurrection and Reckoning and reject the call you make in Allah’s name! Counsel and warn them with what Moses went through.

Your Lord had called out to Moses in the Valley of Tuwa: “O Moses! Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘If you are willing to be purified, I have come to invite you to take Allah alone as Lord and God and to live by the system of life that is the reason for your creation.’” This was so that he might give up oppressing Allah’s servants and setting himself up in the place of Lord and God, and consider that he would give account after death.

We supported Moses with miracles, so that it would be plainly known that he was a prophet and was making this call in Our name.

But Pharaoh, though invited with clear verses and miracles, rejected this call, and did not believe in being raised after death or in the Day of Reckoning.

To silence Moses and stop him from persuading the people to accept the call, and to preserve and perpetuate his own order, he took action against Moses; he gathered his men and called out to them: “I am your Lord (your Owner)!”

For this ingratitude and wanton rebellion of Pharaoh’s, Allah seized him in an iron grip and punished him with the punishment of this world and the Hereafter.

Surely those who use their reason rightly and reflect, and who are conscious of their responsibility toward Allah, draw the necessary lessons from this.

O you who try to keep Allah out of life and do not believe that you will be raised after death and called to account! Think, and tell us: Is it harder to create you again after death, or to create the sky above you and what is in it? Raise your heads and look: with what perfection Allah has created what is there and built it without pillars, how He darkens it by night and lights it by day!

Turn and look too at how He has spread out the earth and made it fit to live on for all living things, how He has brought forth water from the ground and produced the cover of vegetation, and how He has set the mountains in place and made the earth firm, and reflect once more.

You and your livestock alike are provided for from what Allah has created.

When that dreadful Day of Resurrection that will turn everything upside down comes, the human being will remember on whom and on what he used up the blessings and time bestowed on him; but by then it will be far too late.

On that day Hell will be brought out for all to see. Then whoever disregarded and opposed Allah’s call, ran wild and rebelled, and lived only for worldly life, that will be the place he ends up in.

And whoever lived out his worldly life in submission to Allah’s call, the place he ends up in will be Paradise, the home of peace, security, happiness, and blessings.

O Prophet! They still keep asking you when the Last Hour will come and the Resurrection break forth.

We have not made known its time, so how could you know it?! Allah alone knows when it will come. Your task is only to make known that the Last Hour will come and the Resurrection will surely take place, and to warn of the terror of That Day.

When they are raised to give account, those who lived calling these days a lie and denying them will think they stayed in the world only one night, or from one evening to the next forenoon.