Surah Taha English Translation & Transliteration

¹(1-2) Ta Ha. We did not send down this Quran to you so that you should suffer hardship and be unhappy.

²(1-2) Ta Ha. We did not send down this Quran to you so that you should suffer hardship and be unhappy.

³We sent it down only as an admonition for whoever holds Allah in reverence.

⁴It is sent down by the One who created the earth and the lofty heavens.

⁵He is the Most Merciful (ar-Rahman), who has brought the whole universe under His sovereignty.

⁶To Him belongs everything in the heavens, on the earth, all that is between them, and all that lies in the depths of the soil.

⁷Whether you speak your thoughts openly or conceal them makes no difference, for He knows the secret and what is even more hidden.

⁸Allah—there is no god but Him. The most beautiful names belong to Him alone.

⁹Has the account of what Moses went through reached you?

¹⁰Recall when he saw a fire and said to his family: —Wait here; I have seen a fire. Perhaps I can bring you an ember from it, or find someone by the fire to show us the way.

¹¹When at last he came to the fire, a voice called out to him: "O Moses!"

¹²—It is I, your Lord. Take off your shoes! For you are now in the sacred valley, in Tuwa!

¹³I have chosen you, so now listen to what is revealed!

¹⁴Yes, I am Allah; there is no god but Me. So serve Me alone, and perform the prayer to remember Me!

¹⁵There is no doubt that the Hour, the end of this world, will surely come. So that everyone may receive in full the recompense for what they have earned, I almost kept it hidden even from Myself.

¹⁶Never let the one who does not believe that the end of the world will come, and who follows his vain desires and whims, hold you back from believing in it; otherwise you will perish.

¹⁷—What is that in your right hand, O Moses?

¹⁸Moses said: —It is my staff. I lean on it, and with it I shake down leaves for my sheep. I also use it for other things.

¹⁹Allah said: —Put it down on the ground, O Moses!

²⁰Moses put his staff down on the ground, and what did he see? It had suddenly become a snake, slithering swiftly away.

²¹Allah said: —Take hold of it and do not be afraid! We will return it to its original state.

²²—Now put your hand inside your garment; it will come out dazzling white, without any blemish. Here is yet another miracle for you!

²³—Thus We are showing you some of Our greatest miracles.

²⁴—Now go to Pharaoh, for he has grown utterly insolent.

²⁵Moses said: —My Lord, put my heart at ease!

²⁶—Make my task easy for me!

²⁷—Untie the knot in my tongue,

²⁸—So that they may fully understand my words!

²⁹—Give me a helper from my family!

³⁰—My brother Aaron.

³¹—Support and strengthen me through him.

³²—Make him my partner in my task.

³³—So that we may glorify You all the more.

³⁴—And remember You all the more.

³⁵—Surely You see us in every state.

³⁶Allah said: O Moses, all that you asked for has been granted to you.

³⁷Indeed, We had shown you another favor in the past.

³⁸Recall when We inspired your mother, saying:

³⁹Put the baby in the chest and set it on the river, so that the river may carry him to the shore; then an enemy of Mine and his will take him. O Moses, I bestowed on you a loving affection from Myself, so that you would be raised under My watchful eye.

⁴⁰Recall when your sister went along, following you, and said: —Shall I show you someone who will take on the care of him? So We reunited you with your mother, so that she might be comforted and not grieve. Then, when you grew up, you killed a man. We delivered you from that trouble too, and raised you by putting you through many tests. Then you lived for years among the people of Midian. At last, in accordance with My decree, here you are, O Moses!

⁴¹I chose you and raised you for Myself.

⁴²—Now go, you and your brother, with the signs I have given, and never be slack in conveying My message.

⁴³—Go to Pharaoh, for he has grown utterly insolent.

⁴⁴—But speak to him in a gentle manner; perhaps he will come to his senses or come to hold Allah in reverence.

⁴⁵Both of them said: —Our Lord, we fear that he will act against us with excess or grow even more insolent.

⁴⁶Allah said: —Do not be afraid. For I am always with you; I protect you and watch over you.

⁴⁷—Go to him, then, and say: We are messengers sent by your Lord. Let the Children of Israel leave Egypt with us, and do not torment them. Truly, we have come to you with a sign/proof from your Lord. Peace be upon those who follow my guidance.

⁴⁸—Have no doubt that this has been revealed to us: The punishment will surely fall upon the one who denies the truth and turns away from it.

⁴⁹Pharaoh said: —Who is your Lord, O Moses?

⁵⁰Moses said: —Our Lord is the One who gave everything the purpose of its creation and then showed it the way that suits it.

⁵¹Pharaoh said: —Then what will become of the nations of the past?

⁵²Moses said: —The knowledge of what will become of them is bound to a law in my Lord's keeping, for my Lord never errs and never forgets.

⁵³He is the One who made the earth a place of life for you, opened up opportunities for you on it, and sent down water from the sky. And with this rainwater We have brought forth all kinds of plants in pairs.

⁵⁴Eat of those blessings yourselves and graze your animals on them. Surely there are many proofs in this for those of sound reason.

⁵⁵From that soil We created you, into it We will return you, and from it We will bring you forth once more.

⁵⁶Indeed, We had shown Pharaoh all Our signs, but he clung to lies and turned away.

⁵⁷And he said: —Have you come to drive us out of our land with this sorcery of yours, O Moses?

⁵⁸Have no doubt that we too will answer you with sorcery like yours. Come, then, set a time for a meeting in an open place, one that neither you nor we can back out of!

⁵⁹Moses said: —Let our meeting be on the day of the festival, in the mid-morning, when all the people are gathered.

⁶⁰Thereupon Pharaoh ended the meeting and went off; he prepared all his plans and came to the appointed place.

⁶¹Moses said to them: —Woe to you! Do not invent lies against Allah, or He will destroy you with a terrible punishment. Whoever slanders Him is certainly doomed to lose.

⁶²Thereupon the sorcerers debated their situation among themselves and whispered together in secret.

⁶³They said: —These two sorcerers want to drive you out of your land with their sorcery and to destroy your exemplary tradition and your way of life.

⁶⁴—So bring out all your skill in sorcery and show your strength in orderly ranks, for whoever prevails today will have won the victory.

⁶⁵The sorcerers said: O Moses, will you show your skill first, or shall we begin?

⁶⁶Moses said: —No, you begin. And lo! Because of the sorcery they worked, their ropes seemed to be moving swiftly.

⁶⁷So a fear arose within Moses.

⁶⁸We said: —Do not be afraid at all, for it is certainly you who will prevail.

⁶⁹Now put down the staff in your right hand; it will swallow up their ropes and sticks. What they have contrived is nothing but a sorcerer's trick. For sorcerers never succeed.

⁷⁰In the end the sorcerers fell down in prostration and said: —We have believed in the Lord of Moses and Aaron.

⁷¹Pharaoh said: —So you believed in him before I gave you permission, did you? Then he must be your great master, the one who taught you sorcery. I will strip you of your rights and hang you from the trunks of palm trees! Then you will see which of us has the more severe and more lasting punishment!

⁷²The sorcerers said: —We will never prefer you over all the proofs shown to us and over Allah, who created us. Pass whatever judgment you like on us; your judgment holds only in this world.

⁷³We have surely believed in our Lord so that He may forgive us our sins and the sorcery you forced us to practice. Allah is the most worthy of belief and the most enduring.

⁷⁴Whoever comes to his Lord steeped in guilt, for him there is Hell, where he can neither die nor truly live.

⁷⁵And whoever comes before his Lord as a believer who has done good and beautiful deeds—for such as these there are lofty ranks:

⁷⁶Gardens of Adn (Eden), beneath which rivers flow, where they will abide. This is the reward of the one who has purified himself.

⁷⁷Indeed, We revealed to Moses: —Set out with My servants by night and open a dry path for them through the sea. Do not fear that Pharaoh will catch you, nor fear drowning!

⁷⁸Pharaoh pursued them with his soldiers, but the waves of the sea engulfed them and swallowed them up.

⁷⁹Pharaoh had led his people astray and had not shown them the right path.

⁸⁰O Children of Israel! We delivered you from your enemy, promised you the right slope of Mount Sinai, and sent down to you manna and quails.

⁸¹Eat of the clean and lawful things among what We have provided for you, but do not grow insolent through ingratitude, or you will deserve My wrath. Whoever deserves My wrath goes tumbling headlong to ruin.

⁸²But know this well, too: I most certainly forgive those who repent and turn back, and so believe, do good and beautiful deeds, and remain steadfast on the right path.

⁸³Allah said: O Moses, why were you in such haste to leave your people and come here?

⁸⁴Moses said: —They are following my way. My Lord, I hastened to come so that You might be pleased.

⁸⁵Allah said: —After you left, We tested your people, and the Samiri led them astray from the right path.

⁸⁶Thereupon Moses returned to his people, extremely angry and grieved, and said: O my people, had your Lord not made you a fine promise? Did the time for that promise seem too long to you, so that you lost hope in it? Or did you want your Lord's wrath to fall upon you, and so broke the covenant/word you gave me?

⁸⁷They said: —We did not break our word to you of our own will. But we were bearing the burden of guilt for having seized the Egyptians' ornaments, so we threw them into the fire. And the Samiri did the same.

⁸⁸Yes, the Samiri produced for them the statue of a calf that made a bellowing sound, and they said: —This is your god and the god of Moses, but he has forgotten it.

⁸⁹Yet did they not see that the statue could not respond to any of their requests, and had no power to bring them either harm or benefit?

⁹⁰Moreover, before Moses returned, Aaron had said to them: O my people! You have been lured into a terrible trap with this statue. Your true Lord is the Most Merciful, so follow me and obey my commands.

⁹¹But they had said: —We will not stop revering it until Moses comes back to us.

⁹²Moses said: O Aaron, when you saw them going astray, why did you not stop them?

⁹³Should you not have followed me? Or did you defy my command?

⁹⁴Aaron said: O son of my mother, stop tugging at my hair and beard! The truth is, I feared you would say, "You did not heed my word and you sowed division among the Children of Israel."

⁹⁵—And what were you after, O Samiri? he demanded sharply.

⁹⁶He said: —I saw some things that they did not see, and I took a part of the messenger's system of belief and threw it away. That is what my inner self prompted me to do.

⁹⁷Moses said: —Get out of here! For the rest of your life you will be shunned by society, condemned to loneliness, left alone with your deviant belief. And a punishment you can never escape awaits you. Now look at this god of yours, before which you so persistently bowed in reverence: we will burn it and then scatter its ashes into the sea.

⁹⁸Do not forget: your God is only Allah, other than whom there is no god. For His knowledge encompasses all things.

⁹⁹In this way We relate to you some of the events of the past, for We have given you from Ourselves a reminder (dhikr), a source of admonition and honor.

¹⁰⁰Whoever turns away from this message full of warnings, let him know well that on the Day of Resurrection he will bear a heavy burden of guilt.

¹⁰¹And he will never be able to get out from under that load. How dreadful is the load they will be crushed under on the Day of Resurrection!

¹⁰²On that day the Trumpet (Sur) will be blown, and on that day We will gather the guilty with their eyes gone blue-gray and dull.

¹⁰³Speaking to one another in hushed voices, they will say: —You stayed in the world only about ten days.

¹⁰⁴We know very well what they are saying. The most sensible among them will say: No, you stayed no more than a day or so.

¹⁰⁵They ask you what will become of the mountains on that day. Say: —My Lord will turn them to dust and scatter them.

¹⁰⁶And He will level the places where they stood and leave them as dry, barren ground,

¹⁰⁷so that you will see there neither a hollow nor a mound.

¹⁰⁸On that day, when people are summoned to be gathered, they will follow the caller without veering in any direction, and voices will be hushed in awe of the Most Merciful, so that you will hear nothing but a whisper.

¹⁰⁹On that day intercession will benefit no one except the one whom the Most Merciful permits and whose word/faith and affirmation He is pleased with.

¹¹⁰For Allah knows both what they have done and what they will do. But their knowledge cannot grasp this.

¹¹¹And on that day faces will be bowed before the One who is the source of life and the governor of the universe. And whoever carries a load of wrongdoing will be utterly ruined.

¹¹²But whoever does good and beautiful deeds as a believer will fear neither being wronged nor being denied the reward for what he has done.

¹¹³Thus We have sent down this revelation as an Arabic Quran. And We have set out again and again the punishments We will give, so that they may perhaps guard themselves, or so that it may become a fresh admonition for them.

¹¹⁴Allah, the true Sovereign over all things, is the most exalted of all. While the Quran is being revealed to you, do not hasten to give judgment on any matter before the revelation is complete! And say: "My Lord, increase me in knowledge!"

¹¹⁵Indeed, We had earlier made Our covenant known to Adam. But he forgot it, and We did not find him resolute in obeying Our command.

¹¹⁶Recall when We said to the angels: —Prostrate for Adam/place yourselves at his command, and they at once prostrated/placed themselves at his command. But Iblis did not prostrate; he stubbornly refused.

¹¹⁷Then We said: O Adam! This is an enemy to you and your wife. Beware! Do not let him drive you both out of the garden, or you will be wretched.

¹¹⁸Whereas in the garden you will neither go hungry nor be left out in the open.

¹¹⁹And there you will neither suffer thirst nor be exposed to the heat.

¹²⁰But Satan whispered to them, to make them commit the evil/sin that Allah had told them not to approach: "If you do this, you will become angels/kings, or among those who stay here forever."

¹²¹In the end both of them yielded to Satan's whisperings and committed the evil/sin, and when they realized what they had done, they began to cover up their wrongs.

¹²²Adam repented. His Lord chose him and guided him to the right path.

¹²³And He said to them both: —Go down from there, all of you, as enemies to one another. When guidance comes to you from Me, whoever follows My guidance will never lose his way and will never be wretched.

¹²⁴But whoever turns away from My reminder full of warnings/the Quran will certainly have a life of hardship, and on the Day of Resurrection We will bring him to the Gathering blind.

¹²⁵He will say: —My Lord, why have You brought me to the Gathering blind, when in the world I could see?

¹²⁶Allah will say: —Yes, that is how it is, for when Our verses came to you, you paid no heed to/made light of them. So today you too will be disregarded and paid no heed.

¹²⁷This is how We punish those who overstep the limits and do not believe in their Lord's verses. And the punishment of the Hereafter will be more severe still.

¹²⁸Has it not brought them to their senses that We destroyed so many generations who lived before them, in whose homelands they now walk about? Surely there are many lessons in this for those of sound reason.

¹²⁹Had it not been for a law previously laid down by your Lord and an appointed term, they would have been finished long ago.

¹³⁰So be patient with what they say, and proclaim the glory of your Lord with praise (through prayer) before the rising of the sun and before its setting; proclaim His glory also in some hours of the night and at both ends of the day, so that you may attain your Lord's good pleasure.

¹³¹Do not look with envy upon the deceptive splendor of worldly life that We have given some of them only to test them, for the blessings your Lord has given you are better and more lasting.

¹³²Command your family to perform the prayer, and persevere in it yourself! We do not ask you for provision; it is We who provide for you. The happy ending belongs to those who guard themselves against defying Allah.

¹³³And they even go so far as to say: "Should he not have brought us a sign/proof from his Lord?" Yet have clear verses/proofs from the Quran about those of the past not come to them?

¹³⁴Had We destroyed them before sending the Book, they would certainly have said: —Our Lord! Could You not have sent us a messenger, so that we might have followed Your verses before being disgraced and humiliated like this?

¹³⁵Say: —Everyone is waiting for the end they deserve, so you wait too. Before long you will learn who are the travelers on the right path and who are the ones who attain what they hoped for.