Surah al-Hajj is Makkan, except for the verses from the saying of Allah, exalted is He, “These are two adversaries,” up to His saying, “and they will be guided to the path of the Praiseworthy.”

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful.

“O mankind, fear your Lord. Indeed, the earthquake of the Hour is a terrible thing. (1) On the Day you see it, every nursing mother will be distracted from the child she is nursing, every pregnant woman will miscarry her burden, and you will see people as though intoxicated, though they are not intoxicated; rather, the punishment of Allah is severe. (2)”

“O mankind, fear your Lord”: that is, beware of His punishment by obeying Him. “Indeed, the earthquake of the Hour is a terrible thing.” An earthquake, or violent shaking, is an intense movement in a terrifying state. The scholars differed concerning this earthquake.

Alqamah and al-Shabi said: It is among the signs of the Hour. [And it was said: It is the coming of the Hour.] (1)

Al-Hasan and al-Suddi said: This earthquake will occur on the Day of Resurrection.

Ibn Abbas said: The earthquake of the Hour is its coming to pass, and it will occur along with it. “On the Day you see it”: that is, the Hour; and it was also said: the earthquake. “Will be distracted”: Ibn Abbas said, “She will be preoccupied”; and it was also said, “She will forget.” One says, “I was distracted from such-and-such,” meaning, “I left it and became occupied with something else.”

“Every nursing mother will be distracted from the child she is nursing”: that is, every woman who has with her a child whom she is nursing. In Arabic, the term for a nursing woman is used without the feminine ending when it is intended as a descriptive quality, like the terms for a menstruating or pregnant woman; but when they intend the action itself, they add the feminine ending. “And every pregnant woman will miscarry her burden”: that is, she will lose her child from the terror of that Day.