هَلْ يَنظُرُونَ إِلَّا ٱلسَّاعَةَ أَن تَأْتِيَهُم بَغْتَةًۭ وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ
Do they not consider that the Hour may overtake them suddenly while they are unaware?
ٱلْأَخِلَّآءُ يَوْمَئِذٍۭ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ عَدُوٌّ إِلَّا ٱلْمُتَّقِينَ
On that day, friends will be one another’s enemies, except for the Godwary.
يَٰعِبَادِ لَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلْيَوْمَ وَلَآ أَنتُمْ تَحْزَنُونَ
[They will be told,] ‘O My servants! Today you will have no fear, nor will you grieve
ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَا وَكَانُوا۟ مُسْلِمِينَ
—those who believed in Our signs and had been Muslims.
ٱدْخُلُوا۟ ٱلْجَنَّةَ أَنتُمْ وَأَزْوَٰجُكُمْ تُحْبَرُونَ
Enter paradise, you and your spouses, rejoicing.’
يُطَافُ عَلَيْهِم بِصِحَافٍۢ مِّن ذَهَبٍۢ وَأَكْوَابٍۢ ۖ وَفِيهَا مَا تَشْتَهِيهِ ٱلْأَنفُسُ وَتَلَذُّ ٱلْأَعْيُنُ ۖ وَأَنتُمْ فِيهَا خَٰلِدُونَ
They will be served around with golden dishes and goblets, and therein will be whatever the souls desire and eyes delight in. ‘You will remain in it [forever].
وَتِلْكَ ٱلْجَنَّةُ ٱلَّتِىٓ أُورِثْتُمُوهَا بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
That is the paradise you have been given to inherit for what you used to do.
لَكُمْ فِيهَا فَٰكِهَةٌۭ كَثِيرَةٌۭ مِّنْهَا تَأْكُلُونَ
There are abundant fruits for you in it, from which you will eat.’
إِنَّ ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ فِى عَذَابِ جَهَنَّمَ خَٰلِدُونَ
Indeed the guilty will remain [forever] in the punishment of hell.
لَا يُفَتَّرُ عَنْهُمْ وَهُمْ فِيهِ مُبْلِسُونَ
It will not be lightened for them, and they will be despondent in it.
وَمَا ظَلَمْنَٰهُمْ وَلَٰكِن كَانُوا۟ هُمُ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
We did not wrong them, but they themselves were wrongdoers.
وَنَادَوْا۟ يَٰمَٰلِكُ لِيَقْضِ عَلَيْنَا رَبُّكَ ۖ قَالَ إِنَّكُم مَّٰكِثُونَ
They will call out, ‘O Malik! Let your Lord finish us off!’ He will say, ‘Indeed you will stay on.’
لَقَدْ جِئْنَٰكُم بِٱلْحَقِّ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَكُمْ لِلْحَقِّ كَٰرِهُونَ
‘We certainly brought you the truth, but most of you were averse to the truth.’
أَمْ أَبْرَمُوٓا۟ أَمْرًۭا فَإِنَّا مُبْرِمُونَ
Have they settled on some [devious] plan? Indeed, We too are settling [on Our plans].
أَمْ يَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّا لَا نَسْمَعُ سِرَّهُمْ وَنَجْوَىٰهُم ۚ بَلَىٰ وَرُسُلُنَا لَدَيْهِمْ يَكْتُبُونَ
Do they suppose that We do not hear their secret thoughts and their secret talks? Yes indeed [We do]! And with them are Our messengers, writing down [everything].
قُلْ إِن كَانَ لِلرَّحْمَٰنِ وَلَدٌۭ فَأَنَا۠ أَوَّلُ ٱلْعَٰبِدِينَ
Say, ‘If the All-beneficent had offspring, I would have been the first to worship [him].’
سُبْحَٰنَ رَبِّ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ رَبِّ ٱلْعَرْشِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ
Clear is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, the Lord of the Throne, of whatever they allege [concerning Him]!
فَذَرْهُمْ يَخُوضُوا۟ وَيَلْعَبُوا۟ حَتَّىٰ يُلَٰقُوا۟ يَوْمَهُمُ ٱلَّذِى يُوعَدُونَ
So leave them to gossip and play until they encounter the day they are promised.
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِى فِى ٱلسَّمَآءِ إِلَٰهٌۭ وَفِى ٱلْأَرْضِ إِلَٰهٌۭ ۚ وَهُوَ ٱلْحَكِيمُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ
It is He who is God in the sky, and God on the earth, and He is the All-Wise, the All-Knowing.
وَتَبَارَكَ ٱلَّذِى لَهُۥ مُلْكُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا وَعِندَهُۥ عِلْمُ ٱلسَّاعَةِ وَإِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ
Blessed is He to whom belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them, and with Him is the knowledge of the Hour, and to Him you will be brought back.
وَلَا يَمْلِكُ ٱلَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِهِ ٱلشَّفَٰعَةَ إِلَّا مَن شَهِدَ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ
Those whom they invoke besides Him have no power of intercession, except those who are witness to the truth and who know [for whom to intercede].
وَلَئِن سَأَلْتَهُم مَّنْ خَلَقَهُمْ لَيَقُولُنَّ ٱللَّهُ ۖ فَأَنَّىٰ يُؤْفَكُونَ
If you ask them, ‘Who created them?’ they will surely say, ‘Allah.’ Then where do they stray?
وَقِيلِهِۦ يَٰرَبِّ إِنَّ هَٰٓؤُلَآءِ قَوْمٌۭ لَّا يُؤْمِنُونَ
And his plaint: ‘My Lord! Indeed these are a people who will not have faith!’
فَٱصْفَحْ عَنْهُمْ وَقُلْ سَلَٰمٌۭ ۚ فَسَوْفَ يَعْلَمُونَ
So disregard them, and say, ‘Peace!’ Soon they will know.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
What the passage says. The sūra closes on the Hour that comes “suddenly while they are unaware” (v. 66): that Day friends turn enemies “save the Godwary” (v. 67), who are welcomed — “O My servants, no fear this day” (vv. 68–70) — to a Garden of golden dishes and “whatever the souls desire and eyes delight in” (vv. 71–73), while the guilty abide in a punishment never lightened, crying to Mālik for death and told “you will stay on” (vv. 74–78). Then the deniers’ plotting is answered by God’s (v. 79), their secrets are recorded (v. 80), and the Prophet is made to void the notion of a divine child — “if the All-Merciful had a child, I would be the first to worship” (v. 81) — glorifying “the Lord of the Throne” (v. 82), “God in the sky and God on the earth” (v. 84), with whom is the knowledge of the Hour (v. 85); the idols own no intercession “except those who witness to the truth” (v. 86), and the sūra ends: “disregard them and say ‘Peace’; soon they will know” (vv. 87–89).
How the present sources read it. Al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī work the readings (tashtahī/tashtahīhi, yarjiʿūn/tarjiʿūn, yā māli, awwal al-ʿābidīn) and the plain sense: the friends-turned-enemies are those who befriended upon disobedience; Mālik answers only after long ages; and on v. 81 both lay out the five construals of “the first of the worshippers” — most reading it as an emphatic denial of a divine child (whether in is conditional or negating). Al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān) deepens the theology: v. 84’s doubled “God” means His godhood relates to heaven and earth, not that He is contained in either — an explicit rebuttal of a heaven-god and an earth-god — and vv. 82–85 stack three proofs of sole lordship (dominion, exclusive knowledge of the Hour, the universal return). Al-Mīzān also preserves two disciplining traditions: al-Ṣādiq’s refutation of the dualist Abū Shākir on v. 84 (God is “God in every place”), and al-Jawād’s gloss of “the One” as the concurrence of all tongues that “God created them.”
The two Imāmī sources read the close through walāya, rendered exactly as attributed. On v. 67 al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) both carry al-Ṣādiq’s “by God He meant none but you [the Shīʿa]” and ʿAlī’s long parable of the believing and disbelieving friends; on v. 69 they gloss “those who believed in Our signs” as “the Imams” and “the guilty” as “the enemies of Āl Muḥammad”; on v. 76 al-Burhān reads “We did not wrong them” as “by their abandoning the walāya of your House”; and on v. 78 both make “the truth” they loathed the walāya of Amīr al-Muʾminīn, importing al-Kahf 29 with the ʿAlid gloss and the reading “We prepared for the wrongdoers — the House of Muḥammad their right — a Fire.” On v. 79 both refer “did they contrive a plot” to the Kaʿba pact against the succession, al-Burhān adding al-Ṣādiq’s striking linkage of “the day the document was written” to the foreordained killing of al-Ḥusayn. On v. 81 al-Burhān attaches the creation-of-Adam narration (the People of the Right and Left, the Prophet “first to enter the fire”), and — with al-Mīzān from al-Iḥtijāj — notes ʿAlī’s reading of “the first of the worshippers” as “the first of the deniers.” These are presented as the sources give them (al-Burhān as ḥadīth), not as the verses’ plain wording; al-Qummī’s insertion into al-Kahf 29 is flagged.
The published English. An Enlightening Commentary frames the ending around the two destinies, the futility of the idols’ intercession, and the pure monotheism of “God in the heaven and God on the earth,” reading the final “say ‘Peace’” as forbearing disengagement before the reckoning. All six sources are present; none was silent.