وَيَقُولُ ٱلْإِنسَٰنُ أَءِذَا مَا مِتُّ لَسَوْفَ أُخْرَجُ حَيًّا
Man says, ‘What? Shall I be brought forth alive [from the grave], when I have been dead?’
أَوَلَا يَذْكُرُ ٱلْإِنسَٰنُ أَنَّا خَلَقْنَٰهُ مِن قَبْلُ وَلَمْ يَكُ شَيْـًۭٔا
Does not man remember that We created him before when he was nothing?
فَوَرَبِّكَ لَنَحْشُرَنَّهُمْ وَٱلشَّيَٰطِينَ ثُمَّ لَنُحْضِرَنَّهُمْ حَوْلَ جَهَنَّمَ جِثِيًّۭا
By your Lord, We will surely gather them with the devils; then We will surely bring them up around hell [scrambling] on their knees.
ثُمَّ لَنَنزِعَنَّ مِن كُلِّ شِيعَةٍ أَيُّهُمْ أَشَدُّ عَلَى ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ عِتِيًّۭا
Then from every group We shall draw whichever of them was more defiant towards the All-beneficent.
ثُمَّ لَنَحْنُ أَعْلَمُ بِٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ أَوْلَىٰ بِهَا صِلِيًّۭا
Then surely We will know best those who deserve most to enter it.
وَإِن مِّنكُمْ إِلَّا وَارِدُهَا ۚ كَانَ عَلَىٰ رَبِّكَ حَتْمًۭا مَّقْضِيًّۭا
There is none of you but will come to it: a [matter that is a] decided certainty with your Lord.
ثُمَّ نُنَجِّى ٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّقَوا۟ وَّنَذَرُ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ فِيهَا جِثِيًّۭا
Then We will deliver those who are Godwary, and leave the wrongdoers in it, fallen on their knees.
وَإِذَا تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْهِمْ ءَايَٰتُنَا بَيِّنَٰتٍۢ قَالَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لِلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ أَىُّ ٱلْفَرِيقَيْنِ خَيْرٌۭ مَّقَامًۭا وَأَحْسَنُ نَدِيًّۭا
When Our manifest signs are recited to them, the faithless say to the faithful, ‘Which of the two groups is superior in station and better with respect to company?’
وَكَمْ أَهْلَكْنَا قَبْلَهُم مِّن قَرْنٍ هُمْ أَحْسَنُ أَثَٰثًۭا وَرِءْيًۭا
How many a generation We have destroyed before them, who were superior in furnishings and appearance!
قُلْ مَن كَانَ فِى ٱلضَّلَٰلَةِ فَلْيَمْدُدْ لَهُ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنُ مَدًّا ۚ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا رَأَوْا۟ مَا يُوعَدُونَ إِمَّا ٱلْعَذَابَ وَإِمَّا ٱلسَّاعَةَ فَسَيَعْلَمُونَ مَنْ هُوَ شَرٌّۭ مَّكَانًۭا وَأَضْعَفُ جُندًۭا
Say, ‘Whoever abides in error, the All-beneficent shall prolong his respite until they sight what they have been promised: either punishment, or the Hour.’ Then they will know whose position is worse, and whose host is weaker.
وَيَزِيدُ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱهْتَدَوْا۟ هُدًۭى ۗ وَٱلْبَٰقِيَٰتُ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتُ خَيْرٌ عِندَ رَبِّكَ ثَوَابًۭا وَخَيْرٌۭ مَّرَدًّا
Allah enhances in guidance those who are [rightly] guided, and lasting righteous deeds are better with your Lord in reward, and better at the return [to Allah].
أَفَرَءَيْتَ ٱلَّذِى كَفَرَ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَا وَقَالَ لَأُوتَيَنَّ مَالًۭا وَوَلَدًا
Have you not regarded him who defies Our signs, and says, ‘I will surely be given wealth and children’?
أَطَّلَعَ ٱلْغَيْبَ أَمِ ٱتَّخَذَ عِندَ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ عَهْدًۭا
Has he come to know the Unseen, or taken a promise from the All-beneficent?
كَلَّا ۚ سَنَكْتُبُ مَا يَقُولُ وَنَمُدُّ لَهُۥ مِنَ ٱلْعَذَابِ مَدًّۭا
No indeed! We will write down what he says, and We will prolong his punishment endlessly.
وَنَرِثُهُۥ مَا يَقُولُ وَيَأْتِينَا فَرْدًۭا
We shall take over from him what he talks about, and he will come to Us alone.
وَٱتَّخَذُوا۟ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ءَالِهَةًۭ لِّيَكُونُوا۟ لَهُمْ عِزًّۭا
They have taken gods besides Allah that they may be a [source of] might to them.
كَلَّا ۚ سَيَكْفُرُونَ بِعِبَادَتِهِمْ وَيَكُونُونَ عَلَيْهِمْ ضِدًّا
No Indeed! Soon they will disown their worship, and they will be their opponents.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Triangulated from Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān), al-Qummī, al-Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān), al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) and al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān); the published Enlightening Commentary is carried alongside.
Human-review flags: al-Baḥrānī [bahrani_al_burhan] — a long walāya Q&A (6924) and the Ascension/Paradise narrations were rendered in summary sense with chains abridged, and the block scoped to vv. 66–82; al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] — its lengthy wurūd adjudication, the theological digression on whether anything is "obligatory upon God," and its critique of the occasion-of-revelation reports were condensed.
What the passage says. The sūra turns from sacred history to eschatology and polemic. Man scoffs at bodily resurrection (66); God answers from the first creation — "We created him before when he was nothing" (67) — then swears to gather the deniers with the devils and range them kneeling around Hell, plucking out the most defiant (68–70). Every soul must "come to" the Fire; the Godwary are saved and the wrongdoers left kneeling in it (71–72). The disbelievers taunt the believers over worldly "station and company" (73); God recalls the richer generations He destroyed (74) and warns that the erring are merely given rope (75), while guidance and "the abiding righteous deeds" are the better return (76). Then the man who mocked — "I will surely be given wealth and children" (77) — is refuted: he has no covenant with the Unseen; his boast earns only prolonged punishment and a lonely reckoning (78–80). Finally, the gods taken "for might" will turn on their devotees as opponents (81–82).
The resurrection argument. All the sources read 66–67 as a rebuttal from origination. Al-Qummī [qummi] and al-Baḥrānī [bahrani_al_burhan] ascribe the denial to the dahriyya (materialists), and preserve the fine Imāmī distinction between "he was nothing" here and "not a thing mentioned" in 76:1 — al-Ṣādiq and al-Bāqir gloss the former as "neither determined nor written / not in a book nor knowledge" of the tablets of effacement, the latter as "determined but not mentioned." Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] supplies the systematic kalām: origination is harder than restoration, and God's power over bodies is essential, so restoration is the more assured. Al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] adds the metaphysical refinement that personal identity rests in the soul, not the body, so the raised person is numerically the same though the body is a "like" — meeting the philosophers' objection.
The crux of wurūd (71). Here the exegetes divide, and the division is old. Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] both canvass the two readings — "overlooking/reaching" (Ibn Masʿūd, al-Ḥasan, Qatāda) versus "entering" (Ibn ʿAbbās, Jābir, most exegetes) — al-Ṭūsī favouring "overlooking," anchored in {those… kept far from it, not hearing its faint sound} [21:101]. Al-Qummī reports al-Ṣādiq's decisive philological gloss: "'we came to the water of Banū so-and-so' — that is wurūd, and he did not enter." Al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, characteristically, refuses both extremes: wurūd denotes only intentional attendance, which does not conflict with the following verse's clear implication (via "nadhar," "We leave") that the wrongdoers do enter. His treatment opens onto a long discourse on whether anything can be "obligatory upon God," resolved by his signature thesis that God alone legislates upon Himself.
The polemic and its Shīʿī key. On 73–76 al-Baḥrānī supplies the distinctively Imāmī frame: al-Ṣādiq recasts the taunt "which party is better in station" as Quraysh's mockery of those who accepted ʿAlī's walāya, glossing "the covenant with the All-Merciful" (later, 87) as that same allegiance and reading the whole eschatological sequence through the rising of al-Qāʾim. The four sources agree on the philology — athāth (furnishings), riʾy (appearance), nadī (assembly) — and on the identification of the mocker of 77–80 as al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil, taunting Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt over a debt (Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī from the Ṣaḥīḥ; al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī via Abū al-Jārūd). Only al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī dissents on the occasion, arguing at length that the verses' argumentative form ill-suits a mere mocking word, and re-reads the speaker as a wavering near-believer lured by worldly promise. On 81–82 all agree the idols "taken for might" will become "opponents" (ḍidd); al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī close with al-Ṣādiq's arresting definition — "worship is not [only] bowing and prostration, but obedience: whoever obeys a creature in disobedience to the Creator has worshipped him." The published Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary] carries the plain sense throughout, framing the passage as the certainty of resurrection and the emptiness of worldly boasting.