Meccan, consisting of 17 verses.

By the heaven and the night-visitor! (al-tāriq actually denotes any thing that comes by night, including stars, because they come out at night).

And what will tell you what the night-visitor is? (mā’l-tāriq is a subject and predicate, standing as the second object of [the verb] adrā, ‘tell’; and what comes after the first mā, ‘what’, is the predicate thereof [of this first mā]) — this [statement] emphasises the magnificence of the ‘night-visitor’, which is explained in what follows. It is:

The piercing, the brilliant, because of its piercing the darkness with its light, star!, meaning [the constellation] Pleiades; or [it refers to] all stars (the response to the oath [follows]):

Over every soul there is a keeper (if read la-mā, then mā is extra, and in, is softened in place of the hardened form with its subject omitted, that is to say, innahu; the lām is [a particle] for separation; if read lammā, then in is for negation and lammā means illā, ‘except that’) — the watcher is an angel that keeps a record of its deeds, both the good and the evil.

So let man consider, by way of reflection, from what he was created, from what thing:

the response is: He was created from a gushing fluid, gushing forth from the man and the woman into the womb,

issuing from between the loins, of the man, and the breast-bones, of the woman.

Assuredly He, exalted be He, is able to bring him back, to resurrect man after his death; and so when he reflects on his origins, he will realise that the One who was able to do this is also able to resurrect him,

on the day when [all] secrets, the hidden convictions and intentions of the hearts, are inspected, [when] they are examined and revealed,

whereat he, the one who denies resurrection, will have neither strength, to defend himself against chastisement, nor any helper, to avert it from him.

By the heaven of returns, [of] the rain that returns time and again,

and [by] the earth of fissures, splitting with [the growth of] vegetation,

assuredly it, the Qur’ān, is a decisive word, distinguishing between truth and falsehood,

and it is not a jest, frivolity or falsehood.

Indeed they, that is, the disbelievers, are devising a plot, they are preparing plots against the Prophet (s),

and I [too] am devising a plot, drawing them by degrees [towards destruction] from whence they know not.

So respite, O Muhammad (s), the disbelievers; grant them respite ([reiterated as] an emphasis, one enhanced by the use of a different form [mahhil, amhil]), that is to say, put them off, for a little (ruwaydā is a verbal noun emphasising the import of the operator, and is the diminutive form of rūd or irwad, with shortening of final consonant [ruwaydan, ruwaydā]). Surely enough God, exalted be He, seized them at Badr and abrogated [the dispensation of] ‘granting respite’ by the ‘sword’ verse, in other words, by the command to fight and struggle.