Jesus has named the one Lord, the straight path, and the worship that path requires. Now the question confronts the present rejecters: هَلْ يَنْظُرُونَ اِلَّا السَّاعَةَ اَنْ تَأْتِيَهُمْ بَغْتَةً وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ. What are they waiting for except the Hour to come upon them suddenly while they are unaware? Truth has arrived, messengers have spoken, and the path has been named. Continued refusal leaves them waiting only for the event that ends the possibility of return. Elsewhere the same question follows the arrival of the Hour’s indications: once it comes, what use will remembrance be? Its time is known to God alone, however confidently people continue their lives as though it would never interrupt them.

The Hour reaches into intimate friendship: اَلْاَخِلَّٓاءُ يَوْمَئِذٍ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ عَدُوٌّ اِلَّا الْمُتَّق۪ينَۜ۟. Friends become enemies to one another, except those who fear God. Their love for one another in obedience to Him remains a source of good, while friendships formed around wrongdoing turn against their participants. Earlier, turning away from the All-Merciful’s reminder produced a satanic companion who obstructed the path while making misguidance seem guidance. At arrival before God, that companionship became unbearable. Elsewhere the wrongdoer regrets the intimate friend who led him away from the Reminder, and affection formed around false worship becomes mutual rejection and cursing. What they helped one another pursue has become the cause of their suffering.

يَا عِبَادِ لَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْكُمُ الْيَوْمَ وَلَٓا اَنْتُمْ تَحْزَنُونَۚ اَلَّذ۪ينَ اٰمَنُوا بِاٰيَاتِنَا وَكَانُوا مُسْلِم۪ينَۚ. “My servants”: the address itself honors those who believed in God’s signs and lived as Muslims, sincerely submitting to Him. The sūrah has named angels and Jesus as servants; now believing human beings are welcomed under that honored name. They need not fear what lies ahead or grieve over what they have left behind. Their faith and submission belonged together in the life they lived before this Day. Elsewhere those who truly hear the Messenger are likewise described as believing in God’s signs and submitting to Him. Here that response is met with the security God promised.

اُدْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةَ اَنْتُمْ وَاَزْوَاجُكُمْ تُحْبَرُونَ: enter the Garden, you and your believing spouses, filled with joy. The delight is so great that its beauty appears upon their faces. The Day that turns corrupt intimacy into hostility preserves loving companionship within gladness. Elsewhere the Garden’s people are purified of rancor and sit as brothers facing one another. The friendship preserved in the preceding promise now opens into a life free of the injuries that troubled companionship on earth.

يُطَافُ عَلَيْهِمْ بِصِحَافٍ مِنْ ذَهَبٍ وَاَكْوَابٍۚ وَف۪يهَا مَا تَشْتَه۪يهِ الْاَنْفُسُ وَتَلَذُّ الْاَعْيُنُۚ وَاَنْتُمْ ف۪يهَا خَالِدُونَۚ. Gold dishes and cups are brought around to them; the Garden holds whatever their selves desire and their eyes delight in. Earlier, silver roofs, rising stairways, couches, and gold were named as temporary worldly enjoyment. Pharaoh then demanded gold bracelets as evidence that Moses deserved obedience. Gold now returns as a gift after judgment, not as proof of truth before it. The sūrah did not condemn beauty or pleasure in themselves; it exposed their misuse as measures of revelation and rank. Here the desires of their selves find fulfillment without deception, and their eyes delight without fear of loss: “you will remain there forever.”

The welcome continues: وَتِلْكَ الْجَنَّةُ الَّت۪ٓي اُو۫رِثْتُمُوهَا بِمَا كُنْتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ لَكُمْ ف۪يهَا فَاكِهَةٌ كَث۪يرَةٌ مِنْهَا تَأْكُلُونَ. This is the Garden they are given to inherit because of what they used to do, with abundant fruit from which they eat. Their deeds matter: the life of obedience is answered with an enduring reward. Yet this does not make them independent of God’s favor and mercy. Elsewhere the Garden’s people praise God for guiding them, confess that they could never have found guidance without Him, and are then told that they inherited the Garden because of their deeds. Their praise acknowledges the guidance that made that life possible.

اِنَّ الْمُجْرِم۪ينَ ف۪ي عَذَابِ جَهَنَّمَ خَالِدُونَۚ لَا يُفَتَّرُ عَنْهُمْ وَهُمْ ف۪يهِ مُبْلِسُونَۚ وَمَا ظَلَمْنَاهُمْ وَلٰكِنْ كَانُوا هُمُ الظَّالِم۪ينَ. The people of the Garden were told that they would remain; the criminals who rejected God’s signs remain in Hell. Their punishment is not lightened, and they despair of escape. The passage immediately denies divine wrongdoing: they themselves were the wrongdoers. Worldly splendor and respite were temporary; neither could undo the consequences of their chosen rejection. The contrast is no longer between rich and poor, ruler and messenger, but between faith welcomed into lasting joy and disbelief brought to its painful end.

Their cry asks for death: وَنَادَوْا يَا مَالِكُ لِيَقْضِ عَلَيْنَا رَبُّكَۜ قَالَ اِنَّكُمْ مَاكِثُونَ. They call to Mālik, the keeper of Hell, asking him to appeal to his Lord to make an end of them. They invoke his relation to God, urging him to carry their plea for release from suffering. Mālik answers that they will remain. Elsewhere the people of the Fire ask its keepers for even one day of relief and are answered by the memory of messengers and clear proofs. They are neither allowed to die nor granted a lessening of their punishment. Even the escape they now seek through death is closed.

Mālik’s reply also explains why they remain: لَقَدْ جِئْنَاكُمْ بِالْحَقِّ وَلٰكِنَّ اَكْثَرَكُمْ لِلْحَقِّ كَارِهُونَ. “We brought you the truth, but most of you hated the truth.” God’s messengers and scriptures had brought the guidance they needed in worldly life. The sūrah had already shown truth arriving and being dismissed as magic; now the hatred behind that refusal is named. Elsewhere the Messenger brings truth and calls to a straight path while most of his hearers hate it. The rebuke belongs to the inhabitants of Hell, but the present hearers receive it while they can still answer the truth differently.

The account turns from future punishment to the present plotting against the Messenger: اَمْ اَبْرَمُٓوا اَمْرًا فَاِنَّا مُبْرِمُونَۚ اَمْ يَحْسَبُونَ اَنَّا لَا نَسْمَعُ سِرَّهُمْ وَنَجْوٰيهُمْۜ بَلٰى وَرُسُلُنَا لَدَيْهِمْ يَكْتُبُونَ. Have they firmly contrived a scheme? God is preparing their recompense. Secrecy cannot protect their plot: He hears their hidden thoughts and whispered consultation, and His recording angels remain beside them, writing. Earlier, their fabricated testimony concerning angels was to be written and questioned. What they now conceal is no less known. Elsewhere people profess obedience publicly, devise something else in private, and are told that God writes what they devise; the Prophet is commanded to turn from them and rely upon Him. Their opposition never lies outside the knowledge of the One who sent him.

The claim of divine offspring meets a deliberately impossible condition: قُلْ اِنْ كَانَ لِلرَّحْمٰنِ وَلَدٌۗ فَاَنَا۬ اَوَّلُ الْعَابِد۪ينَ سُبْحَانَ رَبِّ السَّمٰوَاتِ وَالْاَرْضِ رَبِّ الْعَرْشِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ. Say: if the All-Merciful had a child, I would be the first to worship that child. The Prophet’s refusal is not obstinacy: if their claim were true, he would be the first to acknowledge it and act accordingly. But the supposed child is impossible, and so is the worship made conditional upon it. The next verse declares the Lord of the heavens, earth, and Throne far above their description. Elsewhere the same claim is answered by the fact that everyone in the heavens and earth comes to the All-Merciful as a servant. Being honored by God does not make any creature His offspring or a partner in His divinity.

فَذَرْهُمْ يَخُوضُوا وَيَلْعَبُوا حَتّٰى يُلَاقُوا يَوْمَهُمُ الَّذ۪ي يُوعَدُونَ: leave them to plunge into falsehood and play until they meet their promised Day. The command releases the Prophet from pursuing their fruitless contention; judgment has not been abandoned. Near the sūrah’s opening, God continued the reminder despite their excesses. Now the reminder has been delivered and its truth made plain. Their refusal need not consume the Messenger in endless argument. Elsewhere the same command ends at the promised Day, and temporary enjoyment concludes with the warning that they will know.

وَهُوَ الَّذ۪ي فِي السَّمَٓاءِ اِلٰهٌ وَفِي الْاَرْضِ اِلٰهٌۜ وَهُوَ الْحَك۪يمُ الْعَل۪يمُ. He is God in heaven and God on earth, worthy of worship in both. Angels above and human beings below are alike His creatures; neither their exalted place nor their worldly power makes them rivals in divinity. He is the Wise, the Knowing. Elsewhere His being God in the heavens and earth is joined directly to His knowledge of what people conceal and disclose. The Lord whose wisdom governs all creation also knows the private speech of those who oppose His Messenger.

وَتَبَارَكَ الَّذ۪ي لَهُ مُلْكُ السَّمٰوَاتِ وَالْاَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَاۚ وَعِنْدَهُ عِلْمُ السَّاعَةِۚ وَاِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ. Exalted in greatness and abundant goodness is the One to whom belongs the kingdom of the heavens, earth, and all between them. Knowledge of the Hour’s time belongs to Him alone. The confession taught to riders near the opening—“to our Lord we are surely returning”—now becomes direct address: to Him you will be returned for judgment.

وَلَا يَمْلِكُ الَّذ۪ينَ يَدْعُونَ مِنْ دُونِهِ الشَّفَاعَةَ اِلَّا مَنْ شَهِدَ بِالْحَقِّ وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ. Those invoked beside God do not possess the intercession their worshippers expect. The exception belongs to servants such as the angels and Jesus who knowingly testify to His oneness; they intercede by His permission, not by any authority independent of Him. Earlier, the claims made about angels lacked witnessed knowledge and were recorded against their speakers. Here the witnesses speak truth with knowledge. Elsewhere those honored servants intercede only for people God approves, and no intercession benefits anyone without His permission. Their testimony confirms the oneness that their worshippers’ claims deny.

وَلَئِنْ سَاَلْتَهُمْ مَنْ خَلَقَهُمْ لَيَقُولُنَّ اللّٰهُ فَاَنّٰى يُؤْفَكُونَۙ. Asked who created them, the opponents will answer, “God.” At the beginning they acknowledged the Creator of the heavens and earth; now the question concerns their own existence. How, then, are they turned away from worshipping Him alone? Their admission supplies the ground of the worship they resist. Elsewhere the same question follows their acknowledgment that God created the heavens and earth and subjected the sun and moon. The confession must govern whom they serve, not remain a truth they admit while living against it.

God also knows His Messenger’s cry: وَق۪يلِه۪ يَا رَبِّ اِنَّ هٰٓؤُ۬لَٓاءِ قَوْمٌ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَۢ. “My Lord, these are a people who do not believe.” The Lord who knows the time of the Hour knows the grief of the one who has called them toward safety before it. The Prophet has held fast to revelation and conveyed the truth; their continued refusal is not hidden from God. Elsewhere the Messenger complains that his people took this Qur’an as abandoned. Both cries bring the pain of their refusal before the One who entrusted him with the message.

The answer closes the sūrah: فَاصْفَحْ عَنْهُمْ وَقُلْ سَلَامٌۜ فَسَوْفَ يَعْلَمُونَ. Turn away from them and say, “Peace”—a declaration of peaceful disengagement from their hostility. Elsewhere the servants of the All-Merciful answer the ignorant with words of peace, and those who hear vain speech turn away from it. The last words remain a warning and a consolation: فَسَوْفَ يَعْلَمُونَ, they will know. He can leave their hostility without answering it in kind. Their eventual reckoning belongs to God.