Al-Qiyamah, "The Resurrection," is the seventy-fifth surah — 40 verses revealed in Mecca.1 It opens with two oaths: "I swear by the Day of Resurrection and I swear by the reproaching soul [to the certainty of resurrection]. Does man think that We will not assemble his bones? Yes. [We are] Able [even] to proportion his fingertips."
What it is about
The surah answers the doubter who asks, "When is the Day of Resurrection?" When sight is dazzled, the moon darkens and sun and moon are joined, "man will say on that Day, 'Where is the [place of] escape?' No! There is no refuge." On that Day "man, against himself, will be a witness, even if he presents his excuses."2
In the middle comes an instruction to the Prophet ﷺ himself, about how to receive revelation: "Move not your tongue with it, [O Muhammad], to hasten with it. Indeed, upon Us is its collection [in your heart] and [to make possible] its recitation. So when We have recited it [through Gabriel], then follow its recitation. Then upon Us is its clarification."3
People "love the immediate and leave the Hereafter." Yet on that Day "[some] faces, that Day, will be radiant, looking at their Lord. And [some] faces, that Day, will be contorted."4 The surah ends at a deathbed — the soul at the collarbones, the question "Who will cure [him]?", the certainty of parting — and asks: "Does man think that he will be left neglected? Had he not been a sperm from semen emitted? Then he was a clinging clot... Is not that [Creator] Able to give life to the dead?"5
Why it matters
Al-Qiyamah contains one of the Quran's central statements on the believers' vision of God in Paradise, and its "reproaching soul" has shaped Muslim thinking about conscience. Its passage on how the Prophet ﷺ received the Quran — God taking responsibility for its collection and explanation — is a key text on the Quran's preservation. To read Al-Qiyamah in Arabic with translations and recitation, open it on Quran.com.