Surah Az-Zukhruf: Thematic English Translation (Mustafa Çevik)

Ha. Mim. Reflect on the verses of the Quran, which make known to you plainly, in the sounds of your own language, the reason for your creation and how you should live.

This Quran is recorded in the Mother Book that is with Us, and it is in no way the word of a mortal. It has been sent down to convey the truest rulings (laws) concerning your life.

O you who deny the reason for your creation! Shall We give up making the truth known to you because you are a wanton people who turn your backs on the system of life to which you are invited and know no bounds? We sent prophets to the communities before you too and conveyed Allah’s call to them as well, but many of them, like you, did not believe their prophets, mocked them, and called them liars. Though they were far mightier communities than you, We seized them with Our punishment for this attitude and destroyed them, and all that is left of them are stories from which a lesson should be drawn.

If one asked those who associated partners with Allah, just as one asks you, who created the heavens, the earth, and all within them, they too would say, “Allah, of course, who knows everything and is supreme in power, created them.”

It is Allah who spread out the earth like a bed for you to live on in comfort, endowed it with blessings, and made roads between the mountains so that you may come and go on it with ease.

Allah, who sends down rain from the sky in due measure, will raise you after you die just as He revives with it the bone-dry, dead earth.

Reflect on the blessings of Allah, who created all living things in pairs, placed animals at your service, and, through the laws He has set in the seas, has you and your loads carried by ships; and pray to your Lord thus: “Praise be to Allah, who has placed all this at our disposal. Had our exalted Lord not granted these things to us, we could never have had the power to obtain them. Surely in the end we will all return to Him.”

Some people, who do not know Allah as He deserves and do not wish to know Him, are ungrateful people who try to see and portray Allah’s servants as if they were a part of Him, slandering Allah and displaying their ignorance.

Has Allah taken daughters for Himself from among the servants He created, and left the sons to you? Yet when one of these people who associate partners with Allah is given news of the birth of a daughter, his face turns black with rage; full of gloom, he keeps tormenting himself, saying, “Alas! I have had a child who is good for nothing but living decked out in finery.”

These people who associate partners with Allah claim that the angels, who are servants of the Most Gracious, are female. Did they witness the creation of the angels, that they make such an absurd claim? They will be punished with the punishment they deserve on the Day of Reckoning for these claims of theirs, which have been put on record.

And they have the nerve to say, “Had the Most Gracious not willed it, we would not have associated them with Allah as partners and taken them as gods.” They have no knowledge or proof that confirms what they say. And such a baseless thing has no value whatsoever anyway.

Or did We give them a Book before the Quran, and they came upon such knowledge in it, and base their claims on it? No, neither such a Book nor such knowledge exists at all; the only thing they know and say is, “We found our forefathers believing this and living by it. We will follow in their footsteps and their way; we believe that this is what is right.”

It has always been so. In the communities to which We sent prophets before you, the affluent, the spoiled pleasure-seekers, and the rulers also said, just like those who associate partners with Allah today, “We have adopted the religion (system of order and belief) our forefathers established and followed, and we follow in their footsteps.”

And when their prophets said to them, “What if I have come to invite you to live by something truer than the order and belief system of your forefathers? Will you still go on living by the systems of shirk of your forefathers?” those who associated partners with Allah said to their prophets, “We do not accept the way of life to which you invite us.”

So We punished them with the punishment they deserved. Look at the end of those who opposed the call the prophets made in Allah’s name, called it a lie, and rejected it, and see what Our retribution was like.

Long ago Abraham too said to his father and his people: “I will never value, obey, or worship the gods of you and of your forefathers, whose footsteps you follow. I obey Allah alone, who created both me and you, and take Him as God; I believe in His call and turn to it. For the only right path is the path that is my Lord’s call.”

Abraham left these words as an inheritance, as the most fundamental principles, for those who would seek the right path after him. But many people, despite this counsel of Abraham’s, which is in the nature of a warning, take no lesson and learn nothing from it. Even so, Allah lets people who are ungrateful to Him enjoy the blessings of the world, and does not hold them responsible without sending a messenger and a Book to make known the purpose of their creation.

Those who associate partners with Allah began to say to the Prophet, who explained to them the reason for their creation and invited them to live by a system and morality whose limits Allah has set, “These are a sorcerer’s words, spoken to bewitch us. You want us to fall under the spell of these words and abandon the way of life we have kept since our forefathers’ time; so we utterly reject your call.” And then they said: “If Allah wanted this from us, why did He reveal the Quran to you, rather than to the wealthiest of the leading men of these two cities among us?”

Was your Lord to ask them on whom He should bestow the mercy of prophethood, and who was worthy of it? Is it they who share out and distribute your Lord’s blessings?

No; it is Allah who knows best what to bestow on whom, and how much. It is Allah, too, who shares out your provision in worldly life among you, and who has made some of you excel others in abilities, so that you can get your work done by one another. Know well that the order to which the prophets invite you in Allah’s name is better than all the wealth and property amassed in worldly life.

Were it not that people would run wild from the abundance of blessings given them, overstep the bounds, and become a single community associating partners with Allah and denying the truth, We would make the ceilings and stairways of their houses of silver; and, more than that, We would make the doors of their houses and the couches on which they sit and recline of silver too, and smother them in gold and jewels. But all this is nothing but the fleeting pleasures and adornments of worldly life, while the blessings of Paradise in the home of the Hereafter with your Lord are far finer, better, and lasting. These blessings have been prepared for the believers who do their utmost to live in a way that pleases Allah.

Whoever turns away from Allah’s Book, Allah lets Satan and people of a satanic nature fasten upon him. And so they end up as friends of Satan. The devils make them servants of other servants, and they think they are on the right path. In the end, when they are brought before Allah on the Day of Reckoning, those who took the one who had become a devil as a friend will say to him, “If only there were the distance of the east from the west between us and you! What an evil thing it turns out to have been, to be your companion and friend and tag along behind you on your path.” And on That Day Allah will say to the two of them together: “Your accepting the truth today is of no use to you now. For despite the time and blessings you were given, you wronged yourselves by turning your backs on your Lord and being ungrateful. So now suffer the punishment of Hell you have deserved.”

O Prophet! You cannot make one who does not want to hear the truth hear it, nor show it to one who does not want to see it. You can never bring to the right path one who stubbornly insists on remaining in shirk and disbelief.

Whether or not We end your worldly life and take you from among them, We will surely strike them with the punishment they deserve and exact retribution.

Hold fast to the call of the Quran revealed to you. For only thus can you be on the right path. The life to which the Quran (the Reminder) invites is, for you and your people, a reminder and a source of honor, standing, and strength. Know well that when the day comes you will all be called to account for whether or not you followed it.

O Prophet! Just ask the followers of those to whom We sent prophets before you: have We ever permitted godhood to be ascribed to anyone other than Allah, the Most Gracious, and his call to be followed?

Long ago We sent Moses too, with Our clear verses and miracles, to Pharaoh and his people. Moses went to them and said, “I am the messenger of the Lord of all the worlds.” But though they saw the miracles that proved his prophethood, they did not believe Moses and mocked him. So We supported Moses with miracles each mightier and more striking than the last, that perhaps they might reflect, see the truth, and understand. We warned Pharaoh and his people with these miracles, but after every miracle and calamity they met, they came to Moses and said, “O exalted man, O great sorcerer! For the sake of the prophethood your Lord has granted you, pray to Him to save us from these calamities. From now on we will walk the path to which you invite us.” Yet whenever We delivered them from the warning calamities that befell them, they at once broke their word.

At this Pharaoh turned to his people and began to say: “O my people! Is the sovereignty of the land of Egypt not mine, and is this river that flows beneath my feet not mine? Do you not see this magnificent power and dominion of mine? Am I not a mightier master to you than this Moses, a powerless, wretched man? And just look: it is not even clear what he means or what his aim is; am I to be put on a par with him now? If Moses really had been appointed as a prophet, should he not have come before us in splendor and power, with golden necklaces around his neck, golden bracelets on his arms, and angels at his side to help him?” With these words Pharaoh brought under his sway his people, who were already prone to corruption, to associating partners with Allah, to denying the truth, and to ingratitude; and they submitted to Pharaoh and went on serving him. So, when they turned their backs on Us and brought Our wrath down upon themselves, We struck them with the punishment they deserved and drowned them all, and made them a lesson for generations to come, an evil example for those who take others alongside Allah as lord and god.

Whenever the false and corrupt beliefs of the Christians about Jesus, son of Mary, come up, those who associate partners with Allah who are not Christians at once claim that their own absurd beliefs are truer than theirs, and begin to say: “O Muhammad! Tell us, then, which is superior in Allah’s sight: our gods, or Jesus, whom the Christians have taken as a god?” The real aim of their words is to oppose and stir up argument. For they are a group who object to everything blindly, without relying on any knowledge.

As for Jesus, he was an exemplary servant of Ours, on whom We bestowed prophethood and whom We sent to the Children of Israel.

Had We willed, We would have made angels the inhabitants of the earth and so put them in your place.

Without doubt the Quran is a Book that makes known that the Last Hour will come and the Resurrection will take place. Never let the Resurrection, and the Day of Reckoning that will come with it, slip from your minds. Follow the call being made in Allah’s name, and so enter the right path.

Do not let Satan and his followers keep you from the right path! Do not turn to them and hand them this chance, and know well that Satan is your open enemy.

Jesus too came to his people with clear proofs of his prophethood and said: “O my people! I have been charged with saving you from your order founded on shirk, disbelief, and oppression, and inviting you to live the life that is the reason for your creation. I have also come to resolve the matters you are forever disputing and cannot agree on the truth of. Consider that you have responsibilities toward Allah, who created you, and follow the call I am making in Allah’s name! Do not forget that Allah is my Lord and your Lord. Know Him as He deserves, take Him alone as God, and obey and worship Him alone! The only path to follow is the path of the system and morality to which He invites.”

After the death of Jesus, instead of following the call Jesus made in Allah’s name, they split and broke into factions over their differences of opinion about him, and strayed from what is right. Woe on the Day of Resurrection to those wrongdoers who strayed into shirk and disbelief!

Despite so many warnings and so much counsel given them, are they waiting for the Last Hour to come upon them suddenly before they turn to Allah?

On the Day of Resurrection those who associated partners with Allah, who were bosom friends in their worldly lives, will blame one another and become enemies. The believers, on the other hand, who believed in Allah’s call and fulfilled their responsibilities, will be one another’s friends on that day, as they were in the world, and Allah will say to them: “O My believing servants! Today there is no fear, worry, or grief for you. In return for the effort you made in your worldly life to live a life that pleases Allah, enter My Paradise, the home of blessings, in joy and happiness, together with your spouses who believed as you did.” There you will be offered pure and delicious drinks in bowls on trays of gold; you will find everything your souls desire, and you will remain there forever.

O believers! These, then, will be your reward for believing in Allah’s call and following it.

But those who call the call made through the Quran a lie will enter Hell, to remain there forever, because they were ungrateful to Allah, who created them and endowed them with so many blessings; the punishment will never be lightened for them, and they will writhe there, helpless and hopeless.

In giving such a penalty We have not wronged them. Rather, it is they who wronged themselves by being ungrateful to Allah and turning their backs on the truth, and so deserved the punishment.

As they suffer the punishment they deserve, they will call out to the keepers of Hell, “O Malik! Please ask your Lord to take our lives, so that we may be rid of the punishment of this Fire.” And the keeper will answer them: “There is no way for you to escape this punishment; you have deserved it, and you are bound to suffer what you have deserved.”

And Allah will say to them: “In your worldly life We made known to you, through prophets and Books, the reason for your creation and how you should live, and invited you to live accordingly. We also warned you that if you did not follow the call you would meet these days. But you paid no heed, turned away, and loathed it.”

Such people did not accept that the authority to make known the truth, and to lay down rulings and rule in the world and in the Hereafter, belongs to Allah, and thought they would get away with what they did. Yet We hear and know both what they do and what they try to hide; and moreover Our appointed messengers are recording everything that is done.

Some of those who associate partners with Allah say Jesus is the son of Allah, while others say the angels are Allah’s daughters, and so they attribute children to Allah. O Prophet! Say to such people: “What you say is not true at all. Allah has no need to take either a spouse or a child. He is like none of His creatures, and I am the foremost of those who know Him alone as Lord and God. Surely Allah is far above what you ascribe to Him. Were He to have a child, I would be the first to obey that child.”

Allah is the Creator, Lord, and God of the heavens, the earth, and all that is between them; and sovereignty belongs to Him alone.

O Prophet! Now leave the ignorant who will not give up their sins alone with their baseless beliefs and claims, which rest on no knowledge. Let them go on wallowing in their swamp with empty talk until the Day of Resurrection. Only on That Day will they grasp Allah as He deserves, and see and understand how true the belief system and way of life to which they were invited are. He is God of the heavens, the earth, and all that is between them, and judgment belongs to Allah alone. He is most exalted; the knowledge of the Last Hour is with Him.

Allah knows and makes known what is truest in everything. The right to govern what He has created and owns, by the order He has established and the laws He has set, also belongs to Him alone. In the end all people will be gathered in His presence to give account.

Those whom people who associate partners with Allah take as gods alongside Him can never intercede for them. Only those who take Allah alone as God and believe in His call can intercede (help) for people in the world, within the bounds Allah permits.

If you ask those who in their worldly lives take other lords and gods alongside Allah, “Who created you?” they will say without hesitation, “Allah, of course, created us.” Then why, knowing this full well, do they turn away from His call and go after people created like themselves?

Because of this ingratitude of those who associate partners with Allah, and their stubborn turning away from Allah’s call, the Prophet grieves and complains, saying, “My Lord! These people will not turn to what is right.”

O Prophet! Bear with patience what they keep saying and doing, and pay it no heed. Say, “Peace be upon you,” and leave them to themselves; let them go on wallowing in their swamp. When the day comes they will see and understand the truth in any case, but it will be far too late. Their understanding it then will be of no use to them at all.