Surah Fatir: Thematic English Translation (Mustafa Çevik)

It is Allah, worthy of praise and thanks, who created the heavens and the earth and brought them into being, and who created the angels as messengers with wings, in twos, threes, and fours, according to the responsibilities they bear. He creates what He wills, in the manner He wills; there is no limit to His creating, and He has power over everything.

No one can close the door of the blessing and mercy that Allah has ordained for people, and no one can open the door He has closed; He alone possesses supreme power, rule, and wisdom.

O people! Just think about the blessings Allah has created for you: is there any creator other than He who provides for you from the heavens and the earth, that you take other gods alongside Allah? When the plain truth is this, how can you turn away from your Lord’s call?

O Prophet! Do not grieve that those who associate partners with Allah will not accept the call you are making in Allah’s name and call it a lie; do not forget that those before them, too, called the prophets who invited them to the right path liars. Without doubt, every human being will in the end bow to Allah’s judgment and be gathered in His presence to give account.

O people! Know well that the Day of Reckoning Allah has promised will certainly come; do not let the brief life of this world make you forget it and deceive you, and do not let Satan and those who keep Satan company mislead you, using Allah’s name, with their trap and their lie that however you live you will surely be forgiven in the end.

Satan is your open enemy, so treat him as an enemy. He drags his companions along with himself into the raging fire of Hell.

A most severe punishment awaits those who turn their backs on the Allah-centered life that is the reason for their creation and, in ingratitude, persist in associating partners with Allah. But those who believe in Allah’s call and fulfill their responsibilities will attain forgiveness, mercy, and reward.

Can the state of one to whom denial of Allah’s call seems attractive, and who, carried away by that attraction, follows in Satan’s footsteps, ever be the same as the state of one who believes in Allah’s call?

Allah leaves in his straying the one who refuses to accept what is right and persists in preferring to go astray, and He brings the believers out of the darkness into the light and leads them to the right path. So do not wear yourself out with grief over those who associate partners with Allah. Allah certainly knows very well what they do, and He will punish them as they deserve.

Allah sends rain-laden clouds with the wind over dead lands and, bringing those lands together with water, revives them. Just so will the raising of the dead be on the Day of Resurrection.

Whoever wishes to live with honor and dignity, let him know well that the source of honor and dignity is Allah, and that they are attained by being near to Him. Without doubt, one draws near to Allah through good words and righteous deeds.

Allah’s punishment awaits those who insidiously try to lay traps in order to hold people back from Allah’s call and turn them away from it. Allah will also bring their traps to nothing.

O people! Allah created you first from earth, and then, at the stage of your reproducing and multiplying, as females and males from semen, a drop of fluid. No female can conceive or give birth outside Allah’s leave and knowledge. No human being’s life can be lengthened or shortened outside His laws; without doubt, the authority to determine these belongs to Allah alone.

The creation of similarities and differences, too, belongs to Allah. From bodies of water, the water of one thirst-quenching and sweet and that of the other salty and bitter, you bring out fresh food and nourish yourselves, and from some of it you make ornaments. You sail your ships upon them and gain your provision. Should you not reflect on these blessings of His too, give thanks to your Lord, and turn to His call?

Allah, your Lord, lengthens the night and shortens the day, and lengthens the day and shortens the night. It is He who has placed at your service the sun and the moon, each running its course in its own orbit, within the bounds of Allah’s laws, for an appointed time. Such is Allah, your Lord, who established the order of the universe; the right to lay down rulings over what He has created, and sovereignty over it, belong to Him alone, and there is no god but Him.

O you who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth! Those you take as lords and gods alongside Allah cannot create, or own, even the thin skin of a date stone. If you call on them in supplication, they do not hear your voice; and even if they did hear, as you suppose, they could not answer what you ask or solve your problems. What is more, on the Day of Resurrection and Reckoning they will never admit that they were the cause of your associating partners with Allah.

O human being! No one can show you the right path as Allah can, He who has knowledge of everything and knows what is most right, nor call you to Him as He does.

O people! It is you who are in need of Allah, while Allah is in need of nothing. He alone is worthy of thanks and praise. If Allah wills, He will remove you and bring a new community in your place. That is easy for Allah.

On the Day of Reckoning no one will carry anyone else’s burden; even if one whose own burden weighs heavy asks another for help, not even his mother or father, his nearest kin, can help him carry that burden.

O Prophet! You can warn only those who turn wholeheartedly to their Lord, who fear His punishment, and who perform the prayer, and only with them can you set out on the road. Whoever strives with his wealth and his life in the way of Allah’s call is purified and protected from shirk and disbelief. Do not forget that all roads end in Allah.

Can the one who sees and the one who does not, light and darkness, shade and scorching heat, tawhid (affirming the oneness of Allah) and shirk ever be the same? Nor can the living and the dead be the same.

Without doubt, Allah makes His call heard by those who grasp the reason for their creation and seek to live in keeping with it. O Prophet! You cannot make the dead hear Allah’s verses.

You are only one who invites. We have sent you with the Quran as a warner and a bearer of good news. There is no community to which We have not sent a warner.

Pay no heed, and do not grieve, over those who will not accept the call you are making in Allah’s name and accuse you of lying; the prophets We sent before you, too, invited their peoples to the light of truth with clear proofs and with books. But they too were accused of lying and rejected. In the end We seized the deniers in a tight grip and condemned them to the penalty for their ingratitude.

Turn your heads and look carefully at the produce of every color and flavor that Allah creates with the water He sends down from the sky for you, and at the shapes of the mountains and rocks, and the red, white, black, and other hues He has formed within them. Look also at yourselves and at the varied colors and shapes of people like you, and at the perfect harmony and balance in the creation of animals, and reflect on the greatness of your Lord’s knowledge and power.

Among His servants, those who use their capacity to understand and grasp reflect on these things, turn to their Lord’s call, and believe.

Without doubt, those who read the Book Allah has sent, who strive to live the system of life to which they are invited, who perform their prayers consciously and constantly, and who spend, openly and in secret, in His way from the provision Allah has given them, will gain a profit that never runs out. Allah will give them their reward in full, and indeed much more. He is most merciful, compassionate, and forgiving.

O Prophet! This Quran We are sending you is a divine Book that confirms the truths that remain from the books We sent to the prophets before you. Allah sees and observes everything His servants do, and what they fail to do when they should.

Some of Our chosen servants, whom We made heirs to the Book because they pledged to abide by the rulings made known through this divine Book, wrong themselves by failing to do justice to this heritage. Another group follows a middle course, and some, by Allah’s leave, always go ahead in doing good and lead the way. This is the greatest virtue. They will enter the Gardens of Paradise, the home of lasting happiness and blessings. There, as the reward for the effort they spent in Allah’s way in their worldly life, they will be adorned with gold and pearls and clothed in garments of silk.

There they pray: “Praise be to Allah, who has made us forget all the hardships we endured in Allah’s way while in the world, who lets us suffer no grief or sorrow and has taken sadness away from us. Our Lord is most forgiving and most generous in reward. By His grace He has settled us in the home of Paradise; here we will suffer neither weariness nor boredom.”

But those who are conditioned to deny the truth will be condemned to the punishment of Hell they deserve; there they will neither be put to death and their lives ended, nor will the torment of the fire into which they are thrown be lightened for them. Thus are those who are ungrateful to Allah punished. There they will cry out, “Our Lord, please take us out of here and send us back to the world, so that we may turn from our former wrongs and hold fast to Your call.” And We will say to them, “We gave you a life long enough to reflect, use your reason, and understand and live what is right. What is more, We counseled and warned you through prophets and books; despite all this you turned your backs on the call made in your Lord’s name and would not bring yourselves to accept that He is God; now is the time for you to suffer the penalty for this.”

Without doubt, just as Allah knows what is unknown and unseen to you in the heavens and the earth He created, so too He knows the thoughts, feelings, and intentions you try to hide in your hearts.

O people! Allah created you as vicegerents, so that you may live within the bounds of the system of life He invites you to live. Let those who do not accept this truth and do not strive for it know that they will suffer the harm of it and pay the penalty. Their turning away and stubborn persistence will serve no purpose but to increase their unruliness and their punishment.

O Prophet! Say: “Have you ever thought what those you take as gods alongside Allah and go after have created on earth? Do they have any share in the creation and governance of the universe, or have We sent them a book and given them authority to establish order over people?” No, they are bringing ruin both on themselves and on those who follow them.

It is Allah who, by the order He has established and the laws He has set, keeps the heavens and the earth balanced in their orbits. Should He once allow them to stray from their orbits, no power could hold them in place or stop them.

Allah is the One who is in no haste to punish, and who forgives those who repent and turn to what is right.

Once some people had sworn by Allah with all their might that, if a prophet came to counsel and warn them, they would follow his guidance and be ahead of every other community in living what is right. But when a prophet came to them and invited them to live a life whose limits Allah has set, their reaction was harsh and insolent. Growing ever more unruly, they became arrogant, and to keep their own order going they insidiously laid traps for the Prophet and the believers with him. Yet such traps sooner or later trip up the one who lays them. It seems that such people learn no lesson from the fate of those before them, and are waiting for Allah’s law of destruction to take its course. Allah does not change His law for anyone. His law never changes.

Do they never travel through the lands near them and see and consider what end befell those before them, and how they were destroyed? Yet those were more powerful than they. The truth is that no power in the heavens or on earth can withstand Allah’s will. He is All-Knowing and infinite in power.

If Allah were to punish people at once for what they deserve, He would not leave a single person alive on earth. But Allah has granted respite until the term fixed by His law runs out. When that term ends, everyone will receive what they deserve. Allah sees and watches over everyone.