۞ ٱحْشُرُوا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا۟ وَأَزْوَٰجَهُمْ وَمَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْبُدُونَ
‘Muster the wrongdoers and their mates and what they used to worship
مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ فَٱهْدُوهُمْ إِلَىٰ صِرَٰطِ ٱلْجَحِيمِ
besides Allah, and show them the way to hell!
وَقِفُوهُمْ ۖ إِنَّهُم مَّسْـُٔولُونَ
[But first] stop them! For they must be questioned.’
مَا لَكُمْ لَا تَنَاصَرُونَ
‘Why is it that you do not support one another [today]?’
بَلْ هُمُ ٱلْيَوْمَ مُسْتَسْلِمُونَ
‘Indeed, they are [meek and] submissive today!’
وَأَقْبَلَ بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍۢ يَتَسَآءَلُونَ
Some of them will turn to others, questioning each other.
قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّكُمْ كُنتُمْ تَأْتُونَنَا عَنِ ٱلْيَمِينِ
They will say, ‘Indeed you used to accost us peremptorily.’
قَالُوا۟ بَل لَّمْ تَكُونُوا۟ مُؤْمِنِينَ
They will answer, ‘No, you [yourselves] had no faith.
وَمَا كَانَ لَنَا عَلَيْكُم مِّن سُلْطَٰنٍۭ ۖ بَلْ كُنتُمْ قَوْمًۭا طَٰغِينَ
We had no authority over you. No, you [yourselves] were a rebellious lot.
فَحَقَّ عَلَيْنَا قَوْلُ رَبِّنَآ ۖ إِنَّا لَذَآئِقُونَ
So our Lord’s word became due against us that we shall indeed taste [the punishment].
فَأَغْوَيْنَٰكُمْ إِنَّا كُنَّا غَٰوِينَ
So we perverted you, for we were perverse [ourselves].’
فَإِنَّهُمْ يَوْمَئِذٍۢ فِى ٱلْعَذَابِ مُشْتَرِكُونَ
So, that day they will share the punishment.
إِنَّا كَذَٰلِكَ نَفْعَلُ بِٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ
Indeed, that is how We deal with the guilty.
إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوٓا۟ إِذَا قِيلَ لَهُمْ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّهُ يَسْتَكْبِرُونَ
Indeed, it was they who, when they were told, ‘There is no god except Allah,’ used to be disdainful,
وَيَقُولُونَ أَئِنَّا لَتَارِكُوٓا۟ ءَالِهَتِنَا لِشَاعِرٍۢ مَّجْنُونٍۭ
and [they would] say, ‘Shall we abandon our gods for a crazy poet?’
بَلْ جَآءَ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَصَدَّقَ ٱلْمُرْسَلِينَ
Indeed, he has brought [them] the truth, and confirmed the [earlier] apostles.
إِنَّكُمْ لَذَآئِقُوا۟ ٱلْعَذَابِ ٱلْأَلِيمِ
Indeed you will taste the painful punishment,
وَمَا تُجْزَوْنَ إِلَّا مَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
and you will be requited only for what you used to do
إِلَّا عِبَادَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلْمُخْلَصِينَ
—[all] except Allah’s exclusive servants.
أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ لَهُمْ رِزْقٌۭ مَّعْلُومٌۭ
For such there is a known provision
فَوَٰكِهُ ۖ وَهُم مُّكْرَمُونَ
—fruits—and they will be held in honour,
فِى جَنَّٰتِ ٱلنَّعِيمِ
in the gardens of bliss,
عَلَىٰ سُرُرٍۢ مُّتَقَٰبِلِينَ
[reclining] on couches, facing one another,
يُطَافُ عَلَيْهِم بِكَأْسٍۢ مِّن مَّعِينٍۭ
served around with a cup, from a clear fountain,
بَيْضَآءَ لَذَّةٍۢ لِّلشَّٰرِبِينَ
snow-white, delicious to the drinkers,
لَا فِيهَا غَوْلٌۭ وَلَا هُمْ عَنْهَا يُنزَفُونَ
wherein there will be neither headache nor will it cause them stupefaction,
وَعِندَهُمْ قَٰصِرَٰتُ ٱلطَّرْفِ عِينٌۭ
and with them will be maidens, of restrained glances with big [beautiful] eyes,
كَأَنَّهُنَّ بَيْضٌۭ مَّكْنُونٌۭ
as if they were hidden ostrich eggs.
فَأَقْبَلَ بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍۢ يَتَسَآءَلُونَ
Some of them will turn to others, questioning each other.
قَالَ قَآئِلٌۭ مِّنْهُمْ إِنِّى كَانَ لِى قَرِينٌۭ
One of them will say, ‘Indeed I had a companion
يَقُولُ أَءِنَّكَ لَمِنَ ٱلْمُصَدِّقِينَ
who used to say, ‘‘Are you really among those who affirm
أَءِذَا مِتْنَا وَكُنَّا تُرَابًۭا وَعِظَٰمًا أَءِنَّا لَمَدِينُونَ
that when we have died and become dust and bones, we shall be brought to retribution?’’ ’
قَالَ هَلْ أَنتُم مُّطَّلِعُونَ
He will say, ‘Will you have a look?’
فَٱطَّلَعَ فَرَءَاهُ فِى سَوَآءِ ٱلْجَحِيمِ
Then he will take a look and sight him in the middle of hell.
قَالَ تَٱللَّهِ إِن كِدتَّ لَتُرْدِينِ
He will say, ‘By Allah, you had almost ruined me!
وَلَوْلَا نِعْمَةُ رَبِّى لَكُنتُ مِنَ ٱلْمُحْضَرِينَ
Had it not been for my Lord’s blessing, I too would have been among those mustered [in hell]!’
أَفَمَا نَحْنُ بِمَيِّتِينَ
‘Is it [true] that we shall not die [anymore],
إِلَّا مَوْتَتَنَا ٱلْأُولَىٰ وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمُعَذَّبِينَ
aside from our earlier death, and that we shall not be punished?
إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَهُوَ ٱلْفَوْزُ ٱلْعَظِيمُ
This is indeed the supreme triumph!’
لِمِثْلِ هَٰذَا فَلْيَعْمَلِ ٱلْعَٰمِلُونَ
Let all workers work for the like of this!
أَذَٰلِكَ خَيْرٌۭ نُّزُلًا أَمْ شَجَرَةُ ٱلزَّقُّومِ
Is this a better reception, or the Zaqqum tree?
إِنَّا جَعَلْنَٰهَا فِتْنَةًۭ لِّلظَّٰلِمِينَ
Indeed We have made it a punishment for the wrongdoers.
إِنَّهَا شَجَرَةٌۭ تَخْرُجُ فِىٓ أَصْلِ ٱلْجَحِيمِ
It is a tree that rises from the depths of hell.
طَلْعُهَا كَأَنَّهُۥ رُءُوسُ ٱلشَّيَٰطِينِ
Its spathes are as if they were devils’ heads.
فَإِنَّهُمْ لَءَاكِلُونَ مِنْهَا فَمَالِـُٔونَ مِنْهَا ٱلْبُطُونَ
They will eat from it and gorge with it their bellies.
ثُمَّ إِنَّ لَهُمْ عَلَيْهَا لَشَوْبًۭا مِّنْ حَمِيمٍۢ
On top of that they will take a solution of scalding water.
ثُمَّ إِنَّ مَرْجِعَهُمْ لَإِلَى ٱلْجَحِيمِ
Then their retreat will be toward hell.
إِنَّهُمْ أَلْفَوْا۟ ءَابَآءَهُمْ ضَآلِّينَ
They had found their fathers astray,
فَهُمْ عَلَىٰٓ ءَاثَٰرِهِمْ يُهْرَعُونَ
yet they press onwards in their footsteps.
وَلَقَدْ ضَلَّ قَبْلَهُمْ أَكْثَرُ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ
Most of the former peoples went astray before them,
وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا فِيهِم مُّنذِرِينَ
and We had certainly sent warners among them.
فَٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلْمُنذَرِينَ
So observe how was the fate of those who were warned
إِلَّا عِبَادَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلْمُخْلَصِينَ
—[all] except Allah’s exclusive servants!
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
What the passage says. The Day of Decision opens with a command to the angels: gather the wrongdoers, their "spouses," and what they worshipped, and drive them to Hell — but halt them first, "for they are to be questioned" (vv. 22–24). Stripped of the mutual aid they relied on in the world, the followers and the followed fall to recriminating: "you came at us from the right"; "no — you were never believers, and we had no power over you" (vv. 27–33). Both parties confess and share the torment (vv. 34–39). Against this, the sincere servants (al-mukhlaṣīn) are excepted: a known provision, fruits, honour, facing couches, a cup of pure white wine free of intoxication's harms, and wide-eyed maidens like sheltered eggs (vv. 40–49). One of them recalls a worldly companion who mocked his belief in the Resurrection; looking out, he sees him in the midst of the Fire and thanks God's grace for his own deliverance (vv. 50–61). The scene turns to the tree of Zaqqūm growing in Hell's pit, its fruit like devils' heads, and the scalding drink poured over it (vv. 62–68) — the fate of those who blindly followed their straying fathers (vv. 69–70) — before the sūra recalls that most of the ancients strayed despite the warners sent to them (vv. 71–74).
How the present sources read it. On "gather the wrongdoers and their azwāj," the sources diverge: al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī relay the classical glosses (their "likes," the fornicator with fornicators; their sect-fellows; the idolatresses), while al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī prefers "their devil-comrades" (citing al-Zukhruf 36–38). al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī carry the distinctively Imāmī reading — those who wronged the right of the Family of Muḥammad — which al-Mīzān flags as an application (jarī) rather than the literal sense.
The heaviest weight of narration falls on "halt them, for they are to be questioned." al-Baḥrānī assembles a large dossier — through Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, Ibn ʿAbbās, Anas and Abū Barza, by both Shīʿī and Sunnī chains — glossing the questioning as being about the walāya of ʿAlī and the love of the People of the House: the "warrant" on the Ṣirāṭ, the seven arches, and the ḥadīth of the four questions. al-Ṭabarsī and al-Qummī report the same walāya gloss alongside others (innovations, deeds, the testimony of faith). al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, while acknowledging these reports, argues from the context ("why do you not help one another… today they are submissive") that the questioning concerns every truth they arrogantly turned from — reading the walāya narrations as pointing to one instance of that. All of this is rendered here strictly as-attributed to its source.
On the reward of the sincere, the four exegetes converge on the sensory picture while al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī presses it inward: "sincere" (mukhlaṣīn) means those God purified for Himself, whose "known provision" and delight differ in kind from others' even where they share the name — and the "Gardens of Bliss (naʿīm)" hint that the true blessing is walāya, God's undertaking of His servant's affair. On the wine, al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī preserve the fine philology (the reading "yunzifūna"; Ibn ʿAbbās's four faults of worldly wine, all negated here). On the companion in the Fire, the sources debate whether the qarīn is human (Ibn ʿAbbās) or a devil (Mujāhid); al-Mīzān argues he must be human, since the sincere are divinely shielded from devil-comrades. al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī anchor "shall we not die…" in the vivid ḥadīth of the slaughtering of Death as a ram between the Garden and the Fire — reported, al-Mīzān notes, by Shīʿa and Sunnīs alike. On Zaqqūm, all four Arabic sources record Quraysh's incomprehension and Abū Jahl's mockery with dates and butter, and the three explanations of "like devils' heads" (a real plant; a serpent the Arabs called "shayṭān"; the imagination's fixed image of ugliness) — al-Ṭabarsī the fullest, with its supporting verses. al-Baḥrānī closes with the tradition of Noah bequeathing the Greatest Name and the inheritance of knowledge to Shem, read into "We left upon him among the later generations." al-Mīzān's unit here is coarse (12–70, with the 71–113 unit opening at v. 71); its Noah–Abraham remainder is carried into passage 3.