Surah Al-Ma'arij, The Ways of Ascent

Surah 70 · 44 verses · revealed at Mecca

Al-Ma'arij is named from a phrase describing God as the Lord of the ways of ascent, and it opens with someone demanding that the promised punishment be brought on.

The surah answers by describing the day itself — a day whose measure is fifty thousand years, when the sky will be like molten metal and the mountains like tufts of wool, and when no close friend will ask about a friend though they are shown to one another.

Its centre is an observation about human nature that is one of the most exact in the Qur'an: that a human being was created anxious, panicking when evil touches him and withholding when good comes to him. The exception it gives is not the strong or the clever but those who pray, and who keep at it.

The qualities that follow are quiet ones. A known share of their wealth set aside for the one who asks and the one who is deprived. Belief in the day of reckoning. Care about the state of their own souls. Guarding what should be guarded. Keeping trusts and promises. Standing by their testimony.

The surah ends by telling the Prophet to leave them to their idle talk and play until they meet the day they are promised. It was revealed in Mecca, and the instruction to leave people alone is one it gives more than once.

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