An-Nazi'at النازعات

Makki · 46 ayat · 46 with pondering

• Ayah 1The surah opens by swearing on a pull drawn to its limit, and every hand gripping this life is told whose hand is stronger.
• Ayah 2Right after the hardest pull comes the gentlest one: a knot that slips loose at a single tug, and a soul that goes out gladly.
• Ayah 3The heavens are full of beings gliding to His command like swimmers through water, and the same letters that name their swimming name our glorifying.
• Ayah 4The mightiest beings in creation never say 'in a minute' to their Lord; they race to His command, and we are invited too.
• Ayah 5Rain, wind, wombs and souls are all being arranged right now by His command, and the word for their arranging shares a root with pondering.
• Ayah 6Everything we call solid ground will shudder at a single blast, so it matters now what we are standing on.
• Ayah 7The blast that ends every life has a second rider close behind it: the blast that raises every life again.
• Ayah 8On that Day some hearts will race like spurred horses; the ayah says 'some', and leaves us asking which ours will be.
• Ayah 9Every gaze will be lowered one day; the only choice is whether it is lowered now in humility or then in shame.
• Ayah 10The deniers mock being sent back along their own tracks to life; the question they ask to dismiss, a believer can ask in hope.
• Ayah 11The deniers chose the most hopeless picture they could find, bones so hollow the wind whistles through them, and it was no obstacle at all.
• Ayah 12The deniers joked that coming back would be a losing deal for them, and without meaning to, they told the exact truth.
• Ayah 13Everything the deniers thought impossible takes a single shout: no second call, no effort, no delay.
• Ayah 14Those who slept inside the earth suddenly stand on its open, wakeful face, where no one owns a single landmark.
• Ayah 15Straight after the mockery, Allah turns to His Messenger with a question that opens a story: when people laugh at you, remember who went before.
• Ayah 16The Lord of all things called a tired traveller by name in a hidden valley, and made that ordinary ground holy.
• Ayah 17With one word, 'Go', the Lord of the worlds sends a former fugitive to the most powerful man on earth.
• Ayah 18Sent to the worst tyrant on earth, Musa opens not with a threat but with an offer: would you like to grow clean?
• Ayah 19Musa offers to walk ahead of Pharaoh as a guide to the Lord who raised him, because true awe only grows from knowing Him.
• Ayah 20Musa showed Pharaoh the greatest sign, a shepherd's staff made alive, and the most powerful man on earth saw it and knew.
• Ayah 21Pharaoh saw the greatest sign, knew it was true, and still denied it and disobeyed: knowing is not the same as yielding.
• Ayah 22Pharaoh turned his back on the truth and hurried off, busy and energetic, in exactly the wrong direction.
• Ayah 23Humiliated by the sign, Pharaoh gathered a crowd and answered the Lord's call with a call of his own.
• Ayah 24Pharaoh claimed the one title that belongs to Allah alone; the believer puts his face on the ground and gives it back to its Owner.
• Ayah 25The man who called himself most high was seized by Allah and made a warning for this world and the next.
• Ayah 26Pharaoh's story is a river to cross, from his bank to yours; only the one in awe of Allah makes the crossing.
• Ayah 27Doubt He can remake you, and the sky answers: which is harder to build, you or the tent of heaven He pitched above you?
• Ayah 28He lifted the roof of the sky with no pole and levelled it without a crack, and no human builder has ever done either.
• Ayah 29He darkens the night until no road shows, then brings the morning out into the open, and no human hand can do either.
• Ayah 30After raising the sky, He spread the earth wide and smooth for us, like a hollow swept in the sand to cradle what is precious.
• Ayah 31Two words, water and pasture, stand for every drink and meal the earth has ever given, and He brought them out of it.
• Ayah 32He set the mountains down like a ship's anchor, so that the ground we live on holds and does not drift.
• Ayah 33Sky, night, morning, earth, water, pasture and mountains all end in two words: for you, and for your animals, for a while.
• Ayah 34After the list of gifts comes the flood that covers every other calamity, and every provision for the road reaches its end.
• Ayah 35On that Day every forgotten effort comes back to mind at once, and the only remembering that helps is the kind we do now.
• Ayah 36What was hidden and argued about is brought out into open ground, where anyone with eyes can see it.
• Ayah 37The word first used for Pharaoh now opens to everyone, because any of us can burst our banks.
• Ayah 38The fault is not in enjoying this near life, but in preferring it: letting its footprints walk ahead of everything else.
• Ayah 39The one who preferred the near life comes home at last, and the only shelter waiting is the Blaze.
• Ayah 40The whole way home fits in two acts: remembering that you stand before your Lord, and stopping the self at the edge of its fall.
• Ayah 41For the one who held himself back, the Garden is home at nightfall: shade that covers him, and a door that takes him in.
• Ayah 42They ask when the Hour will drop anchor, as if knowing the date would help; the question that matters is whether we are ready.
• Ayah 43A gentle question turns attention from the date of the Hour to the task in hand: you are here to remind.
• Ayah 44Every question about the Hour comes to rest in one place: with your Lord, who alone knows its end.
• Ayah 45The Messenger was not sent to give a date but to shout a warning, and the warning helps only those who take it to heart.
• Ayah 46When the Hour is seen, a whole lifetime will feel like one afternoon, or the morning before it, so today is not a small thing.