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اَلزِّلْزَالِ
The Earthquake

بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ۔

اِذَا زُلْزِلَتِ الْاَرْضُ زِلْزَالَهَا۔ وَ اَخْرَجَتِ الْاَرْضُ اَثْقَالَهَا۔ وَ قَالَ الْاِنْسَانُ مَا لَهَا۔ يَوْمَىِٕذٍ تُحَدِّثُ اَخْبَارَهَا۔ بِاَنَّ رَبَّكَ اَوْحٰى لَهَا۔ؕ يَوْمَىِٕذٍ يَّصْدُرُ النَّاسُ اَشْتَاتًا لِّيُرَوْا اَعْمَالَهُمْ۔ؕ فَمَنْ يَّعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيْرًا يَّرَهُ۔ؕ وَ مَنْ يَّعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ شَرًّا يَّرَهُ۔

In the name of God—the most compassionate, the most merciful.

When earth is shaken in her [final) quaking, and earth throws forth her burdens, and everyman says: “What is [happening] to her?”

On that day she will report her news which your Lord has inspired her with. On that day men will appear in droves to be shown their actions; and whoever has done an atom’s weight of good will see it; while whoever has done an atom’s weight of evil will see it.

The apocalyptic mood is conveyed in these verses through the use of assonance.

The earthquake on Doomsday will be the announcement of the end of the testing period for man. This would mean that the freedom which was theirs on account of their being on trial, has now been snatched away from them.

Now the time has come when human beings will be recompensed for their deeds. Today, God’s world is silent, but when conditions change, everything found here will start talking.

The inventions of the present day have proved that lifeless or inanimate things also have the capacity to ‘talk.’ A performance in a studio is fully reproduced by a video film and records. Similarly, the present world is, so to say, a big ‘studio’ of God. Whatever a man does or says or even thinks, everything is being recorded at every moment. And when the time comes, this world will repeat everybody’s story in such a way that not a thing, great or small, will be left out.