An-Najm النجم

Makki · 62 ayat · 62 with pondering

• Ayah 1Allah swears by the star as it goes down: the brightest thing in the night still sets, and only its Maker never does.
• Ayah 2The man you have always known has not lost the road, nor left it knowingly: two separate failures, both denied in four words.
• Ayah 3The star falls, but his speech does not: nothing he says springs from the pull of his own desire.
• Ayah 4It is nothing but revelation, being revealed: not a figure of speech for genius, but a message placed in him, swift, private and lasting.
• Ayah 5He was taught, and his teacher was one mighty in every strength that makes a messenger trustworthy: understanding, memory and faithfulness.
• Ayah 6With a strength twisted tight like a well-made rope, the angel stood in his true form: what is firm is made, turn by turn.
• Ayah 7The angel stood on the highest horizon, where the morning comes from, and one created being filled the whole edge of the sky.
• Ayah 8Then he drew near and came down, like a bucket lowered into a well: what is high comes down when someone below needs it.
• Ayah 9Two bow-lengths, or nearer: revelation's closeness is measured in the units of a man who carried a bow, near enough to calm a frightened heart.
• Ayah 10At the closest moment of revelation, the Prophet is named only as His servant, and what was revealed is left unsaid, too great to name.
• Ayah 11His heart did not lie about what he saw: the eye and the burning heart agreed, and neither pulled back from the truth.
• Ayah 12Arguing with a man about what he saw with his own eyes is not a search for truth but a way of milking him dry.
• Ayah 13He saw him once more, in another descent: two sightings in a lifetime, years apart, the second in a place where no doubt could follow.
• Ayah 14At the Lote Tree, where all that rises comes to rest and every creature's knowledge stops, the Prophet was given gifts for us.
• Ayah 15Beside the Lote Tree lies the Garden of Refuge: where a soul comes home at last, like camels returning to their people at dusk.
• Ayah 16What covered the Lote Tree is left unnamed, and the Prophet himself said he did not know what those colours were.
• Ayah 17At the greatest moment of his life, his gaze neither wandered aside nor grasped beyond what he was shown.
• Ayah 18He saw some of his Lord's greatest signs, and if the one taken highest saw only some, none of us can hold His greatness.
• Ayah 19After the greatest signs at the edge of creation, the Quran turns and says: now look at al-Lat and al-Uzza, a rock and a tree.
• Ayah 20And Manat, the third, the other: each idol lower than the last, until the list ends on a rock at the tail of the herd.
• Ayah 21Sons for you and daughters for Him: the question exposes a people who gave their Creator exactly what they despised for themselves.
• Ayah 22Keep the best for yourself and hand God the part you would never accept, and the Quran names it in four words: a crooked share.
• Ayah 23Much of what people bow to is a name with nothing underneath it, held up by guesswork and wanting, while real guidance sits unopened at the door.
• Ayah 24A wish is a picture you paint inside your own head, and the world does not have to hang it on its wall.
• Ayah 25The first life and the last both belong to Allah, so no wish, no idol and no ego can claim a single inch of either.
• Ayah 26Heavens crowded with angels cannot move one word on anyone's behalf until Allah permits it, so stop chasing connections and become someone He is pleased with.
• Ayah 27People who expect no final reckoning feel free to say anything about God, even to rename His angels, because they never expect to answer for a word.
• Ayah 28A guess can get you through a Tuesday, but about God, and about other people's hearts, a guess is a well you never looked into.
• Ayah 29There comes a point to stop presenting the case to someone who has turned his back on it, and to stop letting their choice break your heart.
• Ayah 30Knowledge that stops at this world has reached its ceiling, and only your Lord knows who has truly lost the way and who has found it.
• Ayah 31Everything in the heavens and the earth is Allah's, so nothing anyone does slips through, and the ones who did beautifully receive what is most beautiful.
• Ayah 32Keep away from the great wrongs, do not despair over your slips, and never sign your own certificate of goodness: the One who knew you in the womb knows…
• Ayah 33The saddest turning away is the one that happens after someone has come close: look at him, the Quran says, and guard your own heart.
• Ayah 34He started to give, struck the first hard layer, and put down the spade: the Quran's picture of goodness that stops when it starts to cost.
• Ayah 35Every time we hold back good or bet our souls on a promise, we act as if we could see behind the screen, and the Quran quietly asks: can you?
• Ayah 36The truth about who carries your account was not invented yesterday: it was written on the pages given to Musa, and no one who has heard it can plead…
• Ayah 37Ibrahim is remembered in a single word, waffā: he paid in full, every promise kept and every test carried to the end.
• Ayah 38No soul, however strong or willing, will ever carry another's guilt: a stern sentence about the Day, and first of all a charter of freedom.
• Ayah 39Before Allah you hold exactly one thing that is truly yours: your striving, the steps you actually took, while the outcome was always His.
• Ayah 40Nothing you strove for vanishes into the dark: a day is coming when it will be brought out and shown, to you and before everyone.
• Ayah 41Whatever you strove for will not merely be repaid; it will be repaid with the fullest repayment there is, by the One who never shortchanges anyone.
• Ayah 42Every road, every chain of causes and every question finally stops at your Lord, and He is the end that has no end.
• Ayah 43He alone opens the face into laughter and the eyes into tears; neither your joy nor your grief is out of His reach.
• Ayah 44Death and life are His acts, not accidents of biology or gifts of any human hand, and life comes after death in the sentence.
• Ayah 45From one small beginning He makes two different kinds, male and female, each the counterpart of the other, by choice and not by accident.
• Ayah 46Every person began as a little water poured and measured out; the pouring was ours, the making was His.
• Ayah 47The second creation is a promise Allah has placed upon Himself, and the grammar says it will not merely be attempted but will happen.
• Ayah 48He is the One who meets your need and then gives you something to keep, and the most precious thing kept is a contented heart.
• Ayah 49The bright star some of them worshipped is a tended thing with a Lord: the very Lord the orphan of Makkah called them to.
• Ayah 50The same Lord who enriches also brought down the first and mightiest of nations; strength He gave is never a shield against Him.
• Ayah 51Thamud built to last, and He left nothing of them; what remains in this world is only what He chooses to leave.
• Ayah 52The oldest of the destroyed peoples was also the most unjust and the most overflowing, because they were warned the longest and still refused.
• Ayah 53The overturned towns did not overturn themselves: He raised them and let them fall, and neither people nor walls could protect the other.
• Ayah 54What covered the overturned towns is left unnamed, too great to describe, in the same words this surah used for a scene of glory.
• Ayah 55After His gifts and His warnings, one question is put to you alone: which of your Lord’s favours will you keep arguing with?
• Ayah 56This warning is not new: it stands in the line of every earlier warner, whose warnings the surah has just shown coming true.
• Ayah 57The Near One has drawn near: like a departure with the bags already packed, the Hour is as good as here.
• Ayah 58No one but Allah can uncover when the Hour will come or lift it away, and the same is true of every weight on you.
• Ayah 59Wonder at the Quran is not neutral: it opened into faith for the jinn, and closed into mockery for those addressed here.
• Ayah 60He gave you laughter and tears; hearing His warning, you used the laughter and withheld the tears.
• Ayah 61One word paints the listener who will not hear: heedless, amused, singing over the warning, head held high, pressing on without turning aside.
• Ayah 62After every warning, the surah gives one answer: put your face on the ground for Allah, then let your whole life become worship.