وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ وَنَعْلَمُ مَا تُوَسْوِسُ بِهِۦ نَفْسُهُۥ ۖ وَنَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ ٱلْوَرِيدِ
Certainly We have created man and We know to what his soul tempts him, and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.
إِذْ يَتَلَقَّى ٱلْمُتَلَقِّيَانِ عَنِ ٱلْيَمِينِ وَعَنِ ٱلشِّمَالِ قَعِيدٌۭ
When the twin recorders record [his deeds], seated on the right hand and on the left:
مَّا يَلْفِظُ مِن قَوْلٍ إِلَّا لَدَيْهِ رَقِيبٌ عَتِيدٌۭ
he says no word but that there is a ready observer beside him.
وَجَآءَتْ سَكْرَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ بِٱلْحَقِّ ۖ ذَٰلِكَ مَا كُنتَ مِنْهُ تَحِيدُ
The throes of death bring the truth: ‘This is what you used to shun!’
وَنُفِخَ فِى ٱلصُّورِ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ يَوْمُ ٱلْوَعِيدِ
And the Trumpet will be blown: ‘This is the promised day.’
وَجَآءَتْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍۢ مَّعَهَا سَآئِقٌۭ وَشَهِيدٌۭ
Every soul will come accompanied by [two angels], a driver, and a witness:
لَّقَدْ كُنتَ فِى غَفْلَةٍۢ مِّنْ هَٰذَا فَكَشَفْنَا عَنكَ غِطَآءَكَ فَبَصَرُكَ ٱلْيَوْمَ حَدِيدٌۭ
[he will be told] ‘You were certainly oblivious of this. We have removed your veil from you, and so today your eyesight is acute.’
وَقَالَ قَرِينُهُۥ هَٰذَا مَا لَدَىَّ عَتِيدٌ
Then his companion [angel] will say, ‘This is what is ready with me [of his record of deeds].’
أَلْقِيَا فِى جَهَنَّمَ كُلَّ كَفَّارٍ عَنِيدٍۢ
[The two angels accompany him will be told,] ‘Cast every obdurate ingrate into hell,
مَّنَّاعٍۢ لِّلْخَيْرِ مُعْتَدٍۢ مُّرِيبٍ
[every] hinderer of good, transgressor, and skeptic,
ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ مَعَ ٱللَّهِ إِلَٰهًا ءَاخَرَ فَأَلْقِيَاهُ فِى ٱلْعَذَابِ ٱلشَّدِيدِ
who had set up another god along with Allah and cast him into the severe punishment.’
۞ قَالَ قَرِينُهُۥ رَبَّنَا مَآ أَطْغَيْتُهُۥ وَلَٰكِن كَانَ فِى ضَلَٰلٍۭ بَعِيدٍۢ
His companion [devil] will say, ‘Our Lord! I did not incite him to rebel [against You], but he was [himself] in extreme error.’
قَالَ لَا تَخْتَصِمُوا۟ لَدَىَّ وَقَدْ قَدَّمْتُ إِلَيْكُم بِٱلْوَعِيدِ
He will say, ‘Do not wrangle in My presence, for I had already warned you in advance.
مَا يُبَدَّلُ ٱلْقَوْلُ لَدَىَّ وَمَآ أَنَا۠ بِظَلَّٰمٍۢ لِّلْعَبِيدِ
The word [of judgement] is unalterable with Me, and I am not tyrannical to My servants.’
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
God turns from cosmic signs to the human interior: 'We created man and We know what his soul whispers to him, and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.' Two recording angels sit at right and left; the throes of death bring the truth long shunned; the Trumpet sounds; every soul arrives with a driver and a witness, its veil torn away and its sight made sharp; the stubborn ingrate is cast into Hell while his devil-companion disowns him, and God closes the dispute: 'The word is not changed with Me, and I am not unjust to the servants.'
al-Mizan reads the nearness ontologically: God made the soul and its effects, so He is nearer to it than it is to itself — the jugular-vein image being a concession to common understanding — and He glosses 'God comes between a man and his heart' alongside it. Tabatabaʾi carefully notes that the text does not identify the driver and witness with the two recorders, nor limit the Day's witnesses to one. Tusi gives the fullest lexical-theological reading: waswasa as the soul's hidden talk; the competing glosses on the warid (throat-vein, or the heart's watin, so God is nearer than one's own heart); the singular 'seated' for the two angels; and the crucial distinction between the witnessing qarin (v.23) and the devil qarin (v.27). Tabarsi concentrates on the grammar of the dual command 'Cast, you two,' explaining it either as the Arabs' habit of addressing one person in the dual or as a real address to the two angels, and he transmits the Imami variant 'the throe of the Truth came with death.'
The Imami narrations in al-Qummi and al-Bahrani overlay a walaya reading and a sharp anti-caliphal polemic. Both preserve al-Sadiq's 'the driver is the Commander of the Faithful and the witness is the Messenger,' and the report that ʿAli is 'the divider of the Garden and the Fire,' commanded with the Prophet to cast the enemies of the House into the Fire, together with the wasila tradition. Both also read v.25's 'withholder of good' as the second caliph, 'the good' as ʿAli's walaya and the rights of the House, citing the torn deed of Fadak, and identify the disputing pair through the code-names Zurayq, Habtar, al-awwal and Zufar — material recorded here strictly as-attributed and flagged for human review. Against any determinist misreading, al-Bahrani closes with al-Rida's teaching on v.29: God neither compels to sin nor burdens beyond capacity. The Enlightening Commentary supplies the published English for the whole stretch. No source was silent for this passage.