78. The Announcement

THIS CHAPTER containing 40 short, early Meccan verses was revealed after Staircases Upward 70. It deals with cosmogony or the subject of how the world was created in section i; still in the first section we hear the Last Trumpet announcing the final judgment, which continues in it. It achieves this message with a stirring yet quiet dignity, especially towards the end. Again the mood is assisted by rhyme or assonance.

Chapter 78 also marks the beginning of Part xxx, the final and most lyric part of the Quran. This follows the traditional manner of dividing the sacred text into equal divisions for the purpose of continuous reading or recitation, especially during Ramadan, the month of Fasting.

In the name of God, the Mercy-giving, the Merciful!

Part Thirty

(i) * What are they questioning one another about? * About an important announcement * which they are disagreeing over. * However they soon will know! ** Then indeed they shall know!

* Have We not laid the earth out as a cradle
* and [set] the mountains up as kingpins?
* We have created you in pairs
* and granted your sleeping for repose
** and granted night as a garment,
* and granted daytime for [you to earn your] living in.

Cosmogony

* We have built seven firmaments above you * and set a blazing lamp there. * We send down water in torrents wrung from rainclouds ** so We may produce grain and plants with it, * as well as luxuriant gardens.

The Last Trumpet

* The day for Sorting has been appointed,
* the day when the Trumpet shall be blown
so you will come in droves,
* and the sky will open up
as if it had gates,
** and the mountains will travel along
as if they were a mirage.

Hell

* Hell will lurk in ambush * to receive home the arrogant, * who will linger there for ages. * They will taste nothing cool in it nor any drink ** except hot bathwater and slops, * [which are such] a fitting compensation * since they have never expected [to meet with] any reckoning * and have wittingly rejected Our signs. * Everything have We calculated in writing: ** "So taste! Yet We shau only increase torment for you!"

The Heedful in Paradise

(ii) * The heedful will have their scene of triumph * with parks and vineyards, * as well as buxom maidens their own age * and a brimming The cup. ** They will hear no idle talk nor any lying [gossip] there, * as a compensation from your Lord, a calculated gift.

The Mercy-giving

* Lord of Heaven and Earth as well as whatever is in between them, [He is] the Mercy-giving! They control no means of addressing Him; * on the day when the Spirit and the angels will stand there in ranks, only someone the Mercy-giving grants permission to shall speak, and he will speak straight to the point.

* That day will seem too real! Anyone who wishes to, may adopt his recourse to [reach] the Lord. ** We have warned you (all) how punishment lies close-at-hand, on a day when any man will see whatever his own hands have sent on ahead, and the disbeliever will say: "If I were only dust!"

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Published with authorization from Dr.T.B.Irving .