Surah At-Takathur 102:1-8 - Quran Translation Commentary

1. That is: You are so much absorbed in acquiring.wealth, property and means of luxurious living that your real purpose of life and your real destination has been lost sight of. All your efforts are directed towards earning wealth and acquiring high position in society. You are not prepared to rise above this and think seriously.

Total absorption of man acquiring wealth is that basic weakness of man in which he is always involved. However, in the modern times it has acquired a few ‘progressive’ forms such as wealth-worship has become capitalism and matter-worship has come up as materialism. If earlier man did not believe in the Hereafter, now he denies the very existence of God. Formerly man ignored a few moral values in making money, now for worldly benefits he has become totally bereft of them. Then, under the influence of the modern civilized progress everybody is anxious to raise his standard of living, and in the economic and financial fields individuals as well as nations are locked in cut-throat competition, but none is concerned with raising the standard of morals. And there is none who takes the trouble of thinking whether this world is really the last stage of life, or are there no further stages through which man will have to pass? By not paying attention to these most important questions, man has moved, far away from his real purpose of life, and he is in such a state of negligence that he is not aware what is at his back and what is ahead.

2. That is: For grabbing more and more wealth and for acquiring as much property as possible you have spent your whole lives in it and till your last breath you were not prepared to ponder over the facts which will confront you after death. In a hadith too man has been warned on his desire for more wealth and unending greed. Ibne Abbas narrates that the Prophet has said:

“If man had two valleys full of wealth and materials, he would still desire to have the third. Only dust can fill man’s belly (greed).”—-(Bukhari -Kitabur Riqaq).

Dust can fill the belly means that a man’s greed can be ended only after his mixing up with dust, after his death.

3. Soon this reality will be clear to you that abundance of wealth and worldly materials is not the real success, but the real success is acquiring of the wealth for the next world. At that time you will realise your mistake that by ignoring the Hereafter what a calamitous end you have invited.

4. This repetition is for stressing the point and to hint at the inference that the reality about the world-seeking comes before your eyes at the time of death and secondly it will come when the Doomsday will occur.

5. That is: If you had believed in the Day about which the Quran is informing you, then you would not have spent your life in negligence and running after the world, and you would have made preparations for the next world.

6. If you do not want to acknowledge the existence of Hell, you may not do so, but its existence is a reality and that Day is inevitably to occur when it will appear before you and you will see it with your physical eyes.

7. That is: Your having a glimpse of the Hell will not be in the world of dreams, but it will be in the world of reality. Today what you think is unbelievable, when the same thing will come in your observation, then you will believe in it.