Commentary on Sūrat al-Nāziʿāt

“In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.”

“By those who wrench out with force, * and those who draw out gently, * and those who glide swiftly, * then race ahead, * then direct every affair. * On the Day the first blast will convulse all, * followed by the second, * hearts on that Day will tremble, * their eyes downcast. * They say, ‘Will we truly be restored to our former state, * even after we have become decayed bones?’ * They say, ‘That, then, would be a losing return!’ * Yet it will be only a single blast, * and suddenly they will be upon the open plain.”

The opening formula has already been discussed.

“By those who wrench out” means the angels entrusted with taking the souls of the disbelievers: they wrench them out “with force,” meaning violently. “And those who draw out gently” means the angels entrusted with taking the souls of the believers. They draw them out gently, as one releases a slipknot. A slipknot is a fastening that we locally call a tikka, or by some similar term. It is tied in such a way that when one end is pulled, the knot comes undone; it is released quickly and easily. Thus, these angels entrusted with taking the souls of the believers draw them out gently.

The reason is that when the angels entrusted with taking the souls of the disbelievers call upon a soul to come out, they address it with the ugliest descriptions. The angels say to the disbeliever’s soul, “Come out, O wicked soul that inhabited a wicked body! Come out to the wrath of Allah!” The soul then recoils, unwilling to emerge toward this, and disperses throughout the body. They therefore seize it forcefully and wrench it out so violently that the body is nearly torn apart by the severity of the extraction. As for—