Al-Haaqqa

OH, THE LAYING-BARE of the truth!

How awesome that laying-bare of the truth!

And what could make thee conceive what that laying-bare of the truth will be?

THE LIE gave [the tribes of] Thamud and ‘Ad to [all tidings of] that sudden calamity!

Now as for the Thamud - they were destroyed by a violent upheaval [of the earth];

and as for the ‘Ad - they were destroyed by a storm wind furiously raging,

which He willed against them for seven nights and eight days without cease, so that in the end thou couldst see those people laid low [in death], as though they were so many [uprooted] trunks of hollow palm trees:

and dost thou now see any remnant of them?

And there was Pharaoh, too, and [many of] those who lived before him, and the cities that were overthrown - [all of them] indulged in sin upon sin

and rebelled against their Sustainer's apostles: and so He took them to task with a punishing grasp exceedingly severe!

[And] behold: when the waters [of Noah's flood] burst beyond all limits, it was We who caused you to be borne [to safety] in that floating ark,

so that We might make all this a [lasting] reminder to you all, and that every wide-awake ear might consciously take it in.

Hence, [bethink yourselves of the Last Hour,] when the trumpet [of judgment] shall be sounded with a single blast,

and the earth and the mountains shall be lifted up and crushed with a single stroke!

And so, that which must come to pass will on that day have come to pass;