Sura LXX (70)
The Steps or Ascents
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In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
A
suitor sued for punishment to light suddenly
On the
infidels: None can hinder
God
from inflicting it, the master of those Ascents,
By
which the angels and the spirit ascend to him in a day, whose length is fifty
thousand years.
Be
thou patient therefore with becoming patience;
They
forsooth regard that day as distant,
But we
see it nigh:
The
day when the heavens shall become as molten brass,
And the
mountains shall become like flocks of wool:
70:10 And friend shall not question of
friend,
Though
they look at one another. Fain would the wicked redeem himself from punishment
on that day at the price of his children,
Of his
spouse and his brother,
And of
his kindred who shewed affection for him,
And of
all who are on the earth that then it might deliver him.
But
no. For the fire,
Dragging
by the scalp,
Shall
claim him who turned his back and went away,
And
amassed and hoarded.
Man
truly is by creation hasty;
70:20 When evil befalleth him, impatient;
But
when good falleth to his lot, tenacious.
No so
the prayerful,
Who
are ever constant at their prayers;
And of
whose substance there is a due and stated portion
For
him who asketh, and for him who is ashamed to beg;
And
who own the judgment-day a truth,
And
who thrill with dread at the chastisement of their Lord --
For
there is none safe from the chastisement of their Lord --
And
who control their desires,
70:30 (Save with their wives or the slaves
whom their right hands have won, for there they shall be blameless;
But
whoever indulge their desires beyond this are transgressors);
And
who are true to their trusts and their engagements,
And
who witness uprightly,
And
who keep strictly the hours of prayer:
These
shall dwell, laden with honours, amid gardens.
But
what hath come to the unbelievers that they run at full stretch around thee,
On the
right hand and on the left, in bands?
Is it
that every man of them would fain enter that garden of delights?
Not at
all. We have created them, they know of what.
70:40 It needs not that I swear by the Lord
of the East and of the West that we have power
To
replace them with better than themselves:
neither are we to be hindred.
Wherefore
let them flounder on and disport them, till they come face to face with their
threatened day,
The
day on which they shall flock up out of their graves in haste like men who
rally to a standard: --
Their
eyes downcast; disgrace shall cover them. Such their threatened day.