Meccan, consisting of 22 verses.

By the heaven of the constellations, the twelve constellations of the planets — as explained in [sūrat] al-Furqān [Q. 25:61];

and [by] the promised day, the Day of Resurrection;

and [by] the witness, Friday, and the witnessed, the day of ‘Arafa — that is how these three [elements] have been explained in hadīth: for the first one is ‘promised’, the second one is ‘a witness’ [that testifies] to deeds performed in it, while the third is ‘witnessed’ by mankind and angels (the introductory [particle] of the response to the oath has been omitted, but is implied to be laqad, ‘verily’, [sc. laqad qutila ashābu’l-ukhdūd]):

perish, accursed be, the men of the ditch!, the pit in the ground,

of the fire (al-nāri is an inclusive substitution of it [al-ukhdūdi, ‘of the ditch’]), abounding in fuel, by which it was fuelled,

when they sat by it, around the edge of the ditch on chairs,

and they themselves, to what they did to those who believed, in God, in the way of torturing them by hurling [them] into the fire when they did not recant their faith, were witnesses, [they were themselves] present [thereat]. It is reported [in a hadīth] that God saved the believers who had been thrown into the fire by taking their souls before they fell into it, and that the fire then rose up and burnt all those [sitting] around it.

And all that they were vindicative towards them of was that they believed in God, the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Praised,

to Whom belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and God is Witness to all things, in other words, all that the disbelievers disavowed of the believers was their faith.

Indeed those who persecute believing men and believing women, by having them burnt, then do not repent, there will be for them the chastisement of Hell, [in return] for their disbelief, and there will [also] be for them the chastisement of burning, that is to say, the chastisement for their having had the believers burnt, in the Hereafter; but it is also said [that there is this chastisement for them] in this world, as when the fire rose up and burnt them, as [mentioned] above.

Indeed those who believe and perform righteous deeds, for them there will be gardens underneath which rivers flow: that is the supreme triumph.

Assuredly your Lord’s assault, against the disbelievers, is severe, [as severe] as He will [it to be].

Assuredly it is He Who originates, creation, and restores, and is never thwarted in what He wills,

and He is the Forgiving, to sinning believers, the Loving, the One Who shows love to His friends through [His acts of] generosity,

Lord of the Throne, its Creator and Possessor, the Glorious (read nominative al-majīdu), the One deserving of the perfect attributes of sublimity,

Doer of what He desires, nothing able to thwart Him.

Have you, O Muhammad (s), received the story of the hosts,

Pharaoh and Thamūd? (Fir‘awna wa-Thamūda substitutes for al-junūdi) — the mention of ‘Pharaoh’ suffices to also include his followers; their ‘story’ is that they were destroyed for their disbelief, and this is meant as a warning for those who deny the Prophet (s) and the Qur’ān, that they may be admonished [thereby].

Nay, but the disbelievers are [engrossed] in denial, of the mentioned;

and God is behind them, All-Encompassing — they have no protector against Him.

Nay, but it is a glorious, a magnificent, Qur’ān,

in a tablet, suspended above the seventh heaven, preserved (read mahfūzin), from all devils and from having any of its contents altered; it is a high as the distance between the earth and the heaven, and as wide as the distance between the east and the west, made of white pearls — as stated by Ibn ‘Abbās, may God be pleased with both [him and his father, ‘Abbās