25.Surah Al Furqan

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

بَلْ كَذَّبُوا بِالسَّاعَةِ...

25: 11. Nay, they deny the Hour (of the Judgment to come):

C3066. Denying the Hour of Judgment means denying the power of Justice and Truth to triumph; it means asserting the dominion of Evil. But Allah himself will punish them, as shown in the following verses.

... وَأَعْتَدْنَا لِمَن كَذَّبَ بِالسَّاعَةِ سَعِيرًا ﴿١١﴾

but We have prepared a Blazing Fire for such as deny the Hour:

إِذَا رَأَتْهُم مِّن مَّكَانٍ بَعِيدٍ سَمِعُوا لَهَا تَغَيُّظًا وَزَفِيرًا ﴿١٢﴾

25: 12. When it sees them from a place far off, they will hear its fury and its raging sigh.

C3067. For zafir, a deep emission of breath or a sigh, see n. 1607 to 11:106.

Here the Fire is personified. It is raging with hunger and fury, and as soon as it sees them from ever so far, it emits a sigh of desire. Till then they had not realised their full danger.

Now, just as their heart begins to tremble with terror, they are bound together-like with like,-and cast into the roaring flames!

Asad’s Version:

25:11

But nay! It is (the very coming of] the Last Hour to which they give the lie! However, for such as give the lie to [the announcement of] the Last Hour We have readied a blazing flame:

(25: 12) when it shall face them from afar,' they will hear its angry roar and its hiss; (25: 13) and when they are flung, linked [all) together, into a tight space within, they will pray for extinction there and then! 10

[[Asad’s note - 10 For a tentative explanation of the allegory of the sinners' being "linked together" in hell, see my note 64 on 14:49. As regards the "tight space" into which they will be flung, Zamakhshari remarks: "Distress is accompanied by [a feeling of] constriction, just as happiness is accompanied by [a feeling of] spaciousness; and because of this, God has described paradise as being 'as vast as the heavens and the earth [3 : 1 3 3] . " ]]