Surah Al-Qari'ah, The Striking Calamity

Surah 101 · 11 verses · revealed at Mecca

Al-Qari'ah opens the way several of the short Meccan surahs do — naming a thing, asking what it is, and then asking what could make you understand what it is.

Its two images are among the most quoted in the book. People on that day will be like scattered moths, and the mountains like tufts of carded wool. Both describe weightlessness: things that had seemed solid turning out not to be.

Then it gives the weighing. Whoever's scales are heavy will be in a pleasant life; whoever's scales are light will have an abyss for a mother. The surah closes by asking once more what could make you understand what that is, and answering in three words: a blazing fire.

It is eleven verses long, and its Arabic is built almost entirely of hard sounds. Even readers who do not understand a word of the language notice the change in the sound when a reciter reaches it.

Because of its brevity it is among the earliest surahs children memorise, and it is very often chosen for the second unit of a short prayer.

The name itself is one of several the Qur'an uses for the last day, alongside the overwhelming event, the inevitable reality and the deafening blast. Each is a different sound rather than a different event, and the short Meccan surahs cycle through them.

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