Surah At-Tur: Thematic English Translation (Mustafa Çevik)

By Mount Sinai; by this divine Book, set down line by line; by the Kaaba, built to invite people to live in keeping with the reason for their creation; by the sky, created like a dome above you; by the seas that surge and swell: Allah’s punishment will surely come to pass for those who refuse to believe and wage war on the believers, and there is no power that can prevent it from coming to pass.

On That Day the heavens will be shaken with such a shaking, and the mountains moved from their places and set in motion with such a dreadful roar, that woe on That Day to those who called Allah’s call a lie and turned away! Though they have been warned with these truths, those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth still keep idling about in the swamp of the false notions they have sunk into.

Those who closed their eyes and stopped their ears to the truths and ended their lives so will, when the Day of Reckoning comes with the Resurrection, be shoved and pushed into the fire of Hell, and they will be addressed thus: “This is the fire which you did not believe in and paid no heed to, though you were warned in your worldly life. You used to say of the verses of the Quran, ‘These are words spoken by a man with ambitions to be a sorcerer, to bewitch us.’ Well, is this fire you have deserved to enter a sorcerer’s magic too? Or is it a truth you would not hear or believe?”

Now you have come face to face with the truth, and whether you accept it or not, you will suffer this punishment.

But those who guarded against shirk, disbelief, and ingratitude and held fast to the system of life that is Allah’s call will attain blessings of every kind in the Gardens and live forever in bliss, delight, and pleasure.

Their Lord will keep them far from the fire of Hell. In Paradise they will sit on thrones set in rows, and live with the pure, unsullied spouses with beautiful eyes whom Allah has bestowed on them.

And those of their descendants who, like them, believed and fulfilled what their faith required, We will reunite with them in the Gardens. Thus no one’s deeds will go unrewarded; and in the Gardens We will offer them every pure kind of meat and fruit their souls desire, at the hands of pure young servants moving among them.

Those deemed worthy of Paradise will there attain drinks that make no one speak idly, cause no unbalanced behavior, and lead the drinker into no sin, and of which the more one drinks the more one wants; they will live an undying youth with no fear or trace of aging; and as they converse with one another, gleaming and pure like pearls hidden in their shells, they will say: “While we lived in the world with our families, we kept fearing what our end would be; thanks be to Allah, our Lord has protected us from the punishment of the scorching Fire.

It is a good thing that in our worldly life we prayed to and sought help from none but Allah. Surely our Lord is most compassionate, merciful, and gracious toward those who turn to Him so.”

O Prophet! Go on calling people, with counsel and warnings, to live the Allah-centered system of life that is the reason for their creation; for you are a messenger your Lord has charged by His grace, not a soothsayer, a poet, or someone out of his mind.

Despite this truth, those who associate partners with Allah say of their prophet, “He is a poet; with what he tells us he will soon bring a heap of trouble on his head; he will pay the price for opposing our way of life; let us wait and see what befalls him.” Is it their minds, which they do not use rightly, that drive them to say this, or are they running wild out of ingratitude, stubbornness, and insolence?

O Prophet! They say of you, “He made up the Quran himself too.” No; they know that the truth is not so, but they say this because they do not want to live the life to which they are invited through the Quran.

If they are sincere in their claim that the Quran is a human word, let them produce something like it, and we shall see.

Do these people think they were created without cause, for nothing, or did Allah give them the ability to create themselves? Is that why they presume to set up their own order themselves and feel no need of Allah?

Or did they create the heavens and the earth too? No; they too know that this is not so at all, yet they will not accept the call. Do they think they possess your Lord’s treasuries of knowledge and power, and so can do whatever they wish and be sufficient unto themselves?

Or do they have ladders reaching up to the sky, which they climb to bring back news from there? If they have such power, let them produce their proofs.

Some of those who associate partners with Allah carry their ignorance, insolence, and wanton rebellion even further, regarding the angels as Allah’s daughters, attributing to Allah the daughters they think unworthy of themselves, while claiming for themselves the right to have sons.

O Prophet! Yet you ask them for no payment or position in return for the call you make in Allah’s name, and so you do not burden them with a heavy debt! Or do they have with them knowledge or a Book from Allah, on the strength of which they oppose your call? No; their aim is to lay traps for you and render your call ineffective, so as to preserve their systems of life founded on shirk, disbelief, and oppression. But let them know well that they will fall into the traps they lay. The only reason they insist on taking other gods alongside Allah is to keep up their worldly interests.

But let them also know well that Allah has given no one but Himself authority to lay down rulings over His servants and to rule them. He needs no one’s partnership in laying down rulings and ruling. Allah’s knowledge and power are infinite, and His glory is most exalted.

While those who stubbornly persist in associating partners with Allah and denying the truth mock you, saying, “Rain down stones on us from the sky, and we shall see,” even if they saw a piece of the sky falling on them they would still not believe, and would say, “This is just a dense mass of cloud coming toward us.”

O Prophet! Leave to themselves those who close their eyes and ears to the truths, who have made shirk and disbelief their nature and conditioned themselves to it, until the day they are destroyed; let them flounder in their swamp.

When That Day comes, they will feel remorse for the traps they laid for you, the slanders they cast, and their arrogance and airs of greatness, but they will be far too late.

Before the punishment of Hell they will suffer in the Hereafter, they have penalties to suffer in this world too. But most of them are not aware that the punishment that befalls them in the world is because of the system of life and morality they have chosen.

O Prophet, and you who believe with him! As you strive heart and soul to live your lives in submission to your Lord, bear with patience and without compromise the hardships and attacks you meet, and await your Lord’s judgment concerning those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth. Trust in Him and take refuge in Him, and do not forget that the believers are under the protection of Allah, their Lord.

O believers! Begin each new day by giving thanks to your Lord and affirming His greatness anew. In part of the night, and toward morning as the stars fade, turn to your Lord in prayer, and never let Him slip from your minds, morning and evening.