✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
القيامة
Al-Qiyamah
✦ Why this name
The Resurrection — al-Qiyamah, sworn by in the opening verse.
✦ When it came
Meccan. Someone had asked mockingly when the Day would be; the surah answers by describing it.
✦ The story
It swears by two things, and the second is a surprise: *"I swear by the Day of Resurrection, and I swear by the self-reproaching soul."* Your own conscience, sworn by alongside the Last Day. The nagging voice that will not let you settle after doing wrong is presented as evidence for the reckoning.
The question it answers is about bones: does a person think We will not assemble his bones? *Yes* — and We are able to restore even his fingertips. Down to the ridges on his fingers.
Then, in the middle of a description of the Day, the recitation itself is interrupted to tell the Prophet ﷺ to stop moving his tongue in a hurry to catch it. *"Upon Us is its collection and its recitation. So when We have recited it, follow its recitation."*
And its most breathtaking two verses describe the reward as a direction of gaze: *"Faces that Day will be radiant, looking at their Lord."*
✦ How it unfolds
- AYAH 16-19
Do not hurry your tongue
An instruction to the Prophet ﷺ placed inside the surah as it was being revealed.
- AYAH 26-40
The soul at the collarbone
The moment of death described, and the closing question about being left aimless.