‘ABASA (He Frowned)
In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful
1 He frowned and turned away,
2 Because there came to him the blind man.
3 But what could tell you but that perhaps he might grow,
4 Or that he might receive admonition, and the teaching might profit him?
5 As to one who regards himself as self-sufficient,
6 To him you attend;
7 Though it is no blame to you if he does not grow not.
8 But as to him who came to you striving earnestly,
9 And with fear,
10 Of him were you unmindful.
11 By no means! For it is indeed a message of instruction:
12 Therefore let who so will, keep it in remembrance.
13 In scrolls[1] held in honour,
14 Exalted, kept pure and holy,
15 By the hands of scribes,[2]
16 Honourable and pious and just.
17 Woe to man! What has made him reject Allah?
18 From what stuff has he created him?
19 From a sperm drop he has created him, and then shapes him in due proportions;
20 Then he makes his path smooth for him;
21 Then he causes him to die, and puts him in his grave;
22 Then, when it is his will, he will raise him up again.
23 By no means has he fulfilled what Allah has commanded him.
24 Then let man look at his food,
25 For we pour forth water in abundance,
26 And we split the earth in fragments,
27 And produce in it grain,
28 And grapes and nutritious plants,
29 And olives and dates,
30 And enclosed gardens, dense with lofty trees,
31 And fruits and fodder,
32 For use and convenience to you and your cattle.
33 At length, when there comes the deafening noise,
34 That day shall a man flee from his own brother,
35 And from his mother and his father,
36 And from his wife and his children.
37 Each one of them, that day, will have enough concern to make him indifferent to the others.
38 Some faces that day will be beaming,
39 Laughing, rejoicing.
40 And other faces that day will be dust stained.
41 Blackness will cover them:
42 Such will be the rejecters of Allah, the doers of iniquity.
[1] See Surah 87:19, the “scrolls of Ibrahim and Musa”
[2] This is a testimony to the extreme care which the scribes of the previous books gave to preserving the text, “pure and holy” for generations to come.