The man is first described as الْاَعْمٰىۜ, the blind man. When the sūrah presents him again, it describes his eagerness to learn: مَنْ جَٓاءَكَ يَسْعٰىۙ, one who came to you striving, وَهُوَ يَخْشٰىۙ, while fearing God. His blindness does not diminish the worth of his seeking. Al-Anʿām commands that those who come believing in God’s ayahs be welcomed with peace and the assurance of His mercy. The believer’s arrival calls for welcome and instruction.

The question is وَمَا يُدْر۪يكَ لَعَلَّهُ يَزَّكّٰىۙ / اَوْ يَذَّكَّرُ فَتَنْفَعَهُ الذِّكْرٰىۜ: how can you know? Perhaps he will purify himself, or take heed and benefit from the reminder. The hope that he will benefit is already reason to attend to him. The preceding sūrah identifies those who fear the Hour as the ones who benefit from warning; here a man has come while fearing God. Al-Aʿlā likewise says that the one who fears will heed the reminder.

The sūrah sets the two responses beside one another. One is مَنِ اسْتَغْنٰىۙ, the one who feels no need of the guidance offered; you turn your attention to him: فَاَنْتَ لَهُ تَصَدّٰىۜ. The other comes striving and fearing; you turn away from him, occupied elsewhere: فَاَنْتَ عَنْهُ تَلَهّٰىۚ. The repeated فَاَنْتَ isolates the addressee’s own conduct. The prepositions expose its direction: لَهُ, toward him; عَنْهُ, away from him. The contrast is between indifference to guidance and eagerness to receive it. Elsewhere the messenger is forbidden to drive away those who call upon their Lord and commanded not to let his eyes pass beyond them.

The correction also relieves the Prophet of a responsibility that is not his: وَمَا عَلَيْكَ اَلَّا يَزَّكّٰىۜ. He is not answerable if the unreceptive hearer does not purify himself. Calling that hearer to faith remains part of his mission; the rebuke concerns neglecting the believer who has come to learn. The Qur’an elsewhere says that their guidance is not upon the messenger, and that whoever purifies himself does so for his own benefit. Concern for one person’s conversion must not displace another person’s present need for instruction.

كَلَّٓا اِنَّهَا تَذْكِرَةٌۚ / فَمَنْ شَٓاءَ ذَكَرَهُۢ. No. This is a reminder, so whoever wills may heed it. كَلَّٓا forbids repeating the conduct just corrected. The reminder is not reserved for an audience whose conversion seems especially valuable. Al-Muddaththir repeats the invitation to heed it, then adds that people remember only if God wills. The hearer is called to respond without imagining that even this response is independent of God.

The reminder is ف۪ي صُحُفٍ مُكَرَّمَةٍۙ, in honored sheets, مَرْفُوعَةٍ مُطَهَّرَةٍۙ, elevated and purified, بِاَيْد۪ي سَفَرَةٍۙ, in the hands of angelic bearers who are كِرَامٍ بَرَرَةٍۜ, noble and righteous. Al-Wāqiʿah likewise places the noble Qur’an in a protected book touched only by the purified. On the reading that “the purified” in Al-Wāqiʿah are angels, the two passages describe revelation honored and guarded before it reaches its human audience. Its dignity does not wait for influential people to accept it.

The speech turns from the correction of attention to the hearer who refuses revelation: قُتِلَ الْاِنْسَانُ مَٓا اَكْفَرَهُۜ / مِنْ اَيِّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقَهُۜ. A severe denunciation falls upon the human being in his disbelief and ingratitude: how ungrateful he is; from what did God create him? The one who feels no need of guidance is now confronted with the dependence he cannot escape. Al-ʿAlaq shows the human being transgressing because he sees himself as having no need, then warns that his return is to his Lord. Wealth cannot free him from that return. ʿAbasa dismantles that imagined independence from origin to resurrection.

مِنْ نُطْفَةٍۜ خَلَقَهُ فَقَدَّرَهُۙ: from a drop He created him and formed him with the capacities suited to his life. ثُمَّ السَّب۪يلَ يَسَّرَهُۙ: then He eased the way for him—his passage from the womb into the world. ثُمَّ اَمَاتَهُ فَاَقْبَرَهُۙ: then He brings him to death and grants him burial. God’s gifts extend from the human being’s first formation to the dignity of burial: his body is not simply abandoned. Al-Qiyāmah likewise moves from the drop and divine proportioning to the power to revive the dead. The origin that rebukes human pretension also makes resurrection intelligible.

ثُمَّ اِذَا شَٓاءَ اَنْشَرَهُ: then, when He wills, He raises him. Earlier the sūrah said فَمَنْ شَٓاءَ ذَكَرَهُۢ: whoever wills may heed the reminder. The invitation to remember can be refused; resurrection cannot.

The rebuke returns: كَلَّا لَمَّا يَقْضِ مَٓا اَمَرَهُۙ. No—he has not yet fulfilled what God commanded him. The gifts just recounted have not been met with the obedience they call for. Yet the rebuke is followed by another command, directing the hearer toward evidence close at hand: look at your food.

Qāf makes the bearing of such provision on resurrection explicit: after rain revives dead land, it says, “Thus will be the emergence.” Later it describes the earth splitting open as the dead come out swiftly. Here the ground opens for the plants that feed the living; there it opens for the people God raises. The food passage helps the hearer recognize the power of the One who has just promised to raise him.

The section ends مَتَاعًا لَكُمْ وَلِاَنْعَامِكُمْۜ—provision for you and your livestock. “His food” has become “for you”: the hearers are addressed as recipients of these gifts. The identical line closes the account of provision in al-Nāziʿāt, immediately before the Great Catastrophe. Here it comes immediately before the Deafening Blast. Both passages lead from the life God sustains to the reckoning He will bring. The provision is real, but it is not a promise that this life will continue forever.

فَاِذَا جَٓاءَتِ الصَّٓاخَّةُۘ—then, when the Deafening Blast comes. The sūrah began with a man coming to seek instruction; it now reaches the coming of the Day about which instruction warns. The earlier seeker came while fearing God. The closing scene shows the reckoning to which that fear looks ahead.

On that Day, يَوْمَ يَفِرُّ الْمَرْءُ مِنْ اَخ۪يهِۙ: the person flees from his brother, his mother and father, his spouse and his children. He recognizes these relatives, yet flees from them. Al-Maʿārij makes the recognition explicit: people are made to see one another, yet the criminal would ransom himself with children, spouse, brother, clan, and everyone on earth. Luqmān says that neither parent nor child can avail the other. The flight in ʿAbasa is therefore the collapse of kinship as refuge. Even these closest bonds cannot secure a person against the reckoning.

لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مِنْهُمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ شَأْنٌ يُغْن۪يهِۜ: every person among them that Day has an affair that wholly occupies him. The wording recalls the opening اسْتَغْنٰى, but changes the scene entirely. There was someone who felt no need of guidance; here there is no room to attend to anyone else. The reminder once neglected addresses the very reckoning that will then occupy each person completely.

Then the faces appear. وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ مُسْفِرَةٌۙ; ضَاحِكَةٌ مُسْتَبْشِرَةٌۚ—faces that Day are bright, laughing, rejoicing at good news. Opposite them are وَوُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ عَلَيْهَا غَبَرَةٌۙ; تَرْهَقُهَا قَتَرَةٌۜ—faces upon which lies dust, overtaken by darkness. Their expressions show joy at the blessings they see or distress at the punishment they face. Al-Qiyāmah likewise sets radiant faces against grimacing faces expecting calamity.

The darkened group is named: اُو۬لٰٓئِكَ هُمُ الْكَفَرَةُ الْفَجَرَةُ—the disbelieving, the wicked. These words answer the earlier كِرَامٍ بَرَرَةٍۜ, noble and righteous, in sound as well as moral contrast. The bearers of revelation are honored for their faithful service; those condemned at the end have joined disbelief to wickedness.