The same notes the map shows when you tap a line, written out in verse order, each with its source.
Notes on single verses
Five oaths, and a known disagreement about what they name
79:1
The surah opens on five oaths that rhyme all the way through: five feminine plural participles, each followed by a matching word. Project Zamzam take them as the angels who take souls at death, harshly from some and gently from others, then gliding, racing ahead and arranging affairs. That is the common reading. Others take some of them as stars or as the soul itself, which is why Pickthall’s English on this page renders them as meteors and stars rather than angels. The Arabic names none of them, which is what leaves the room.
Source: The oaths are 79:1 to 79:5 and the Arabic names no subject. The angels reading is Project Zamzam’s and is the common one; Pickthall follows a different interpretation, which is why the two do not match on this page.
One blast, then the one that follows it
79:7
Yawma tarjufu ar-rajifah, tatba’uha ar-radifah. The day the quaking one quakes, and the following one follows it. Two rhyming words for two events, and the second is named only by its relation to the first. The surah gives no gap between them and no explanation of either.
Source: 79:6 and 79:7 state this. That the first ends life and the second raises the dead is the commentators’ reading, not wording in the verses.
What he said out loud
79:24
Verse 17 had already said it plainly: go to Pharaoh, he has overstepped. Seven verses later he gathers his people and announces it himself, in four words: ana rabbukumu al-a’la, I am your lord, the highest. The surah lets the charge and the confession sit seven verses apart, and does not connect them for you.
Source: 79:17 and 79:24 state this. The reading of the placement is a structural observation.
Are you the harder thing to make
79:27
The argument against resurrection was that crumbled bones cannot be reassembled. The reply does not address bones at all. It asks a comparison question: are you harder to create, or the sky? Then it describes the sky being raised and set in order, the night darkened, the morning brought out, the earth spread, its water and pasture produced and its mountains fixed. And the last line of it says what all of that was for: provision for you and your livestock.
Source: 79:27 to 79:33 state this outright.
Two things, and one of them is not an action
79:40
As for whoever feared the standing before his Lord and held the self back from its craving. Two clauses: one is a fear and the other is a restraint. Neither of them is something done; both are things not done. The identical phrase, khafa maqama rabbihi, appears in ar-Rahman 55:46, where it is also what earns a garden.
Source: 79:40 states this. The phrase match with 55:46 is checked in the Arabic.
The last line measures the whole thing
79:46
The day they see it, it will be as though they had lingered no more than an evening, or the morning after it. The longest verse in the surah, and the last. After forty-five verses of blasts, a drowned king, the building of the sky and two destinations, the closing measurement of a human life is a single evening.
Source: 79:46 states this.
Connections inside the surah
Five oaths that rhyme all the way through
Axis · 79:1–5
An-nazi’ati gharqa, an-nashitati nashta, as-sabihati sabha, fa-s-sabiqati sabqa, fa-l-mudabbirati amra. Five feminine plural participles, each one followed by a word from its own root or close to it. Nothing is named. The surah swears by five actions and leaves the actors unstated, and the passage moves from pulling out, to gliding, to racing ahead, to arranging.
Source: 79:1 to 79:5. The rhyme and the structure are in the text; who is being sworn by is the interpretive question.
The one that quakes, and the one after it
Thread · 79:6 and 79:7
The day the quaking one quakes, and the following one follows it. The two words rhyme and the second is defined entirely by coming after the first. Two verses, six words, and the end of everything.
Source: Both verses state this.
What they said, and how long it took
Contrast · 79:10 and 79:14
They are saying: are we really to be returned to our former state, even after we are crumbled bones? That, they add, would be a losing return. Two verses later: it is only one shout, and at once they are awake on the surface. The objection takes three verses to state. The answer takes two, and one of them is the event itself.
Source: 79:10 to 79:14 state this. The observation about the lengths is a reading of the passage.
The charge, and the confession seven verses later
Contrast · 79:17 and 79:24
Verse 17 sends Musa with a description of the man: go to Pharaoh, he has overstepped. Verse 24 has Pharaoh gather everyone and say it in his own words: I am your lord, the highest. The surah states the accusation before the scene and then lets him prove it himself.
Source: Both verses state this. The reading of the ordering is a structural observation.
The message Musa was given for him
Thread · 79:18 and 79:19
Say to him: would you be willing to purify yourself, and I will guide you to your Lord, so that you would fear Him. It is put as a question rather than a demand, and it is addressed to a man the previous verse has already described as having overstepped.
Source: Both verses state this. The observation about the phrasing is a reading.
He denied, turned, and then organised
Thread · 79:21 and 79:23
He denied and disobeyed. Then he turned away, working at it. Then he gathered and called out. The refusal is not passive in this account: after rejecting it he goes and assembles an audience.
Source: 79:21 to 79:23 state this.
Made an example, and who it is for
Thread · 79:25 and 79:26
So Allah seized him as an example, for the last and the first. Then: in that is a lesson for whoever fears. The story is not closed off as history; the verse after it names the audience.
Source: Both verses state this.
The sky built, the earth spread, and what for
Axis · 79:27, 79:28, 79:30 and 79:33
Are you harder to create, or the sky He built? He raised its ceiling and set it in order, darkened its night and brought out its morning. And the earth after that He spread out, brought from it its water and its pasture, and fixed the mountains. Then the closing line puts the whole construction to a purpose: provision for you and for your livestock.
Source: 79:27 to 79:33 state this outright.
The great overwhelming, and what a person remembers
Thread · 79:34 and 79:35
When the greatest overwhelming comes, the day a person remembers everything he worked for. Not what was done to him and not what he intended. What he actually pursued.
Source: Both verses state this.
Preferred the life here, or held the self back
Contrast · 79:38 and 79:40
The one who overstepped and preferred the life of this world. And the one who feared the standing before his Lord and held the self back from its craving. Two descriptions, two verses apart, and both of them are about what a person wanted rather than what a person did.
Source: Both verses state this. The observation about wanting is a reading.
The same three words close both verdicts
Mirror · 79:39 and 79:41
Verse 39 ends fa-inna al-jahima hiya al-ma’wa. Verse 41 ends fa-inna al-jannata hiya al-ma’wa. Identical construction, identical final three words, one noun changed. The two outcomes are written as the same sentence, and the whole difference sits in the two verses before each of them.
Source: Both verses end on the identical three words, checked in the Arabic.
They ask, and it is not his to say
Thread · 79:42 and 79:44
They ask you about the Hour: when will it dock? What are you doing mentioning it? To your Lord belongs its ending point. And then verse 45 gives him his actual job: you are only a warner to whoever fears it.
Source: 79:42 to 79:45 state this outright.
Connections to other surahs
Five oaths, no subject, in two surahs — and the particles differ
79:1 → al-’Adiyat 100:1
An-Nazi’at 79:1 to 79:5 is five oaths naming nobody, and al-’Adiyat 100:1 to 100:5 is five more. The split is not the same: an-Nazi’at runs three wa then two fa, while al-’Adiyat runs one wa then four fa. Both leave the commentators to supply the subject.
Source: Counted in the Arabic of both openings: 79:1 to 79:5 are wa, wa, wa, fa, fa and 100:1 to 100:5 are wa, fa, fa, fa, fa.
Crumbled bones, raised in two surahs
79:11 → al-Qiyamah 75:3
Here the objection is quoted from the people making it: even after we are crumbled bones? Al-Qiyamah 75:3 puts the same doubt as a question about them: does man think We will not assemble his bones? And 75:4 answers by going smaller, down to the ends of the fingers.
Source: Both verses state their own half. Reading them together is a structural observation.
The same opening question about Musa
79:15 → Taha 20:9
Has the account of Musa reached you? Taha 20:9 opens its own telling of the same story with that identical question, and then goes on at far greater length: the fire seen from a distance, the valley of Tuwa, the staff, the hand. Here the whole episode is compressed into eleven verses.
Source: Both verses open with the same question.
The same question, opening two different accounts
79:15 → al-Buruj 85:17
An-Nazi’at 79:15: hal ataka hadithu Musa, has the account of Musa reached you? Al-Buruj 85:17: hal ataka hadithu al-junud, has the account of the armies reached you? Identical formula. An-Nazi’at then spends eleven verses on it; al-Buruj answers in two words — Pharaoh and Thamud — and moves on.
Source: Both verses use the identical formula, checked in the Arabic.
The same root for going too far
79:17 → ash-Shams 91:11
An-Nazi’at 79:17 sends Musa to Pharaoh with the charge innahu tagha, he has overstepped. Ash-Shams 91:11 says Thamud denied bi-taghwaha, by its own overstepping. The same root both times — once as the reason a prophet is sent, and once as the reason a people is destroyed.
Source: Both verses use the root t-gh-y, checked in the Arabic.
The same reply to the same objection
79:27 → an-Naba 78:6
Both surahs are answering people who doubt the resurrection, and both answer by pointing at things already built. An-Naba 78:6 opens its list with the earth spread out and the mountains as pegs. An-Nazi’at 79:27 puts it as a question first, are you harder to create or the sky, and then runs its own list. The two surahs sit one after the other in the mushaf.
Source: Both passages state their own half. Reading them together is a structural observation.
The same list, in the active and in the passive
79:27 → al-Ghashiyah 88:18
An-Nazi’at 79:27 to 79:32 builds the sky, raises its ceiling, spreads the earth and fixes the mountains — every verb active, with one subject behind all of them. Al-Ghashiyah 88:18 to 88:20 names the same three and asks how each got that way, with every verb passive and nobody named. One surah tells you who did it; the other asks you to work it out.
Source: Both passages name the sky, the earth and the mountains, and differ in voice. Checked in the Arabic.
The same four words end both arguments
79:33 → ’Abasa 80:32
This surah describes the sky raised and set in order and the earth spread with its water and pasture, then closes it: mata’an lakum wa li-an’amikum, provision for you and your livestock. ’Abasa 80:32 closes its own list — rain, split earth, grain, olives, palms, gardens — on the identical four words. Two consecutive surahs, two different lists, the same ending exactly.
Source: The two verses are word for word identical, checked in the Arabic.
The day you find out what you did
79:35 → at-Takwir 81:14
An-Nazi’at 79:35: the day a man remembers what he worked for. At-Takwir 81:14 puts it as the single main clause that twelve verses of when have been waiting for: a soul knew what it brought. Both surahs make the whole reckoning a matter of a person being shown their own record.
Source: Both verses state their own half, checked in the Arabic. Reading them as a pair is a structural observation.
The same phrase, earning the same thing
79:40 → ar-Rahman 55:46
Khafa maqama rabbihi, feared the standing before his Lord. Ar-Rahman 55:46 uses the identical phrase and attaches two gardens to it. Here it is joined to a second clause, holding the self back from its craving, and what follows is that the Garden is the refuge. Two surahs, one phrase, and the same outcome hanging off it.
Source: The phrase is identical in both verses, checked in the Arabic.
Asked when, and told he does not know
79:42 → al-Jinn 72:25
They ask you about the Hour, when will it come. The answer here is that its term belongs to his Lord and his job is to warn. Al-Jinn 72:25 has him told to say it in the first person: I do not know whether what you are promised is near, or whether my Lord will set a distant term for it. And 72:26 gives the reason: He discloses His unseen to no one.
Source: Both passages state their own half. Reading them together is a structural observation.
Your job is the one who fears, and he is the one who takes it
79:45 → al-A’la 87:10
An-Nazi’at 79:45: innama anta mundhiru man yakhshaha, you are only a warner to whoever fears it. Al-A’la 87:10: sayadhdhakkaru man yakhsha, the one who fears will take heed. The same phrase in both. One surah limits the job; the other says the job works.
Source: Both verses use man yakhsha, checked in the Arabic. Reading them as a pair is a structural observation.
Ayah Unpacked – Connection Map