Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of The Glorious Koran. An Explanatory Translation (1930)

SÛRAH LXX

Al-Ma‘ârij takes its name from a word in verse 3.

An early Meccan Sûrah.

The Ascending Stairways

1. A questioner questioned concerning the doom about to fall

2. Upon the disbelievers, which none can repel,

3. From Allah, Lord of the Ascending Stairways

4. (Whereby) the angels and the Spirit ascend unto Him in a Day whereof the span is fifty thousand years.

5. But be patient (O Muhammad) with a patience fair to see.

6. Lo! they behold it afar off

7. While We behold it nigh:

8. The day when the sky will become as molten copper,

9. And the hills become as flakes of wool,

10. And no familiar friend will ask a question of his friend

11. Though they will be given sight of them. The guilty man will long to be able to ransom himself from the punishment of that day at the price of his children

12. And his spouse and his brother.

13. And his kin that harboured him

14. And all that are in the earth, if then it might deliver him.