Al-Ma'arij, "The Ways of Ascent," is the seventieth surah — 44 verses revealed in Mecca.1 It opens with a mocking request: "A supplicant asked for a punishment bound to happen to the disbelievers; of it there is no preventer. [It is] from Allah, owner of the ways of ascent. The angels and the Spirit will ascend to Him during a Day the extent of which is fifty thousand years. So be patient with gracious patience. Indeed, they see it [as] distant, but We see it [as] near."2
What it is about
The surah describes that Day: "the sky will be like murky oil, and the mountains will be like wool, and no friend will ask [anything of] a friend." The guilty will wish to ransom themselves "by his children. And his wife and his brother and his nearest kindred who shelter him," but the Fire calls to "he who... collected [wealth] and hoarded."3
At its center is a portrait of human nature: "Indeed, mankind was created anxious: when evil touches him, impatient, and when good touches him, withholding [of it], except the observers of prayer — those who are constant in their prayer and those within whose wealth is a known right for the petitioner and the deprived." The exception continues: those who believe in the Day of Recompense, fear their Lord's punishment, guard their chastity, keep their trusts and promises, are upright in their testimony, and carefully maintain their prayer — "they will be in gardens, honored."4
The surah ends with a warning to those who mocked, and an image of the Day "they will emerge from the graves rapidly as if they were, toward an erected idol, hastening."5
Why it matters
Al-Ma'arij names a restlessness everyone recognizes — anxious in hardship, tight-fisted in plenty — and offers prayer and generosity as its cure. Its description of the poor's share as "a known right" in a believer's wealth expresses the Quran's view of charity as an obligation owed rather than a favor given. To read Al-Ma'arij in Arabic with translations and recitation, open it on Quran.com.