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Chapter 81

The Winding Upal-Takwīr ( التكوير )

29 verses • revealed at Meccan

»The surah that opens with a riveting description of The Winding Up of the sun at the end of earthly life and the dawn of eternity. It takes its name from “the winding up”, “the enfolding” or “the darkening” (takwīr) of the sun as mentioned in verse 1. The surah stress the fact that people will be confronted by their deeds on Judgement Day, asserting the truth of the Quran, and calling people to the right path. It opens with a powerful description of events on that Day.«

The surah is also known as Shrouded in Darkness, The Cessation, The Compacting, The Darkening, The Enfolding, The Folding up, Wrapping Things Up

بِسمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحمٰنِ الرَّحيمِ

Yusuf Ali: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

1
إِذَا الشَّمسُ كُوِّرَت

Yusuf Ali

This is quite an early Meccan Sūra, perhaps the sixth or seventh in chronological order. It opens with a series of highly mystical metaphors suggesting the break-up of the world as we know it (verses 1-13) and the enforcement of complete personal responsibility for each soul (verse 14). Then there is a mystical passage showing how the Quranic Revelation was true, and revealed through the angel Gabriel, and not merely a rhapsody from one possessed. Revelation is given for man’s spiritual guidance (verse 14-29).
Comparable with this Sūra are Sūras 82 and 84 which may be read with this.
[81:1-29] How can the soul’s self-conviction be fitly expressed, except by types of tremendous cataclysms in nature, and still more by tremendous searchings in the heart of man? These want deep pondering. When once the spiritual Dawn has “breathed away” the Darkness of the Night, the Vision Glorious clears all doubt, and brings us face to face with Truth. The highest Archangel in heaven is sent by God to bring these truths to men through their Prophet. God’s Grace flows freely: we have but to tune our Will to His,—the ever-loving Righteous God.
When the sun1 (with its spacious light) is folded up;2
  • Verses 1 to 13 are conditional clauses, and the substantive clause is in verse 14. The time will come when nature’s processes as we know them will cease to function, and the soul will only then know by self-conviction the results of its actions. With reference to an individual soul, its resurrection is its supreme crisis: the whole world of sense, and even of imagination and reason, melts away, and its whole spiritual scroll is laid bare before it.
  • The conditional clauses are twelve, in two groups of six. The first six affect the outer or physical life of man; the last six, his inmost spiritual life. Let us take them one by one. (1) The biggest factor affecting us in the external physical World is the light, heat, and perhaps electric or magnetic energy of the sun. The sun is the source of all the light, heat, and energy, and indeed the source and support of all physical life that we know. It is the biggest factor and yet most remote from us in our solar system. Yet the sources of our inner spiritual life will be greater and more lasting, for they will survive it. The sun as the centre of our solar system also stands as a symbol of the present order of things. The physical forces, as defined in Newton’s laws of Matter and Attraction, will also break up with the break-up of the sun.
    Is folded up: is folded up, or twisted up, like a sheet or garment.