90al-BaladThe Urban Areaسُورَةُ البلد

No! I make a solemn declaration by this urban center [Makkah] —

This urban center that you [Muhammad, honorably] inhabit [seemingly free] —

And [I solemnly declare] by parent and pro- geny:

In fact, We have created social humans into [a lifetime] of labor and strain.

Does he [the social human] think that no one has power over him?

He crows, “I have overspent a heap of money!”

Does he figure that no one sees him?

Have We not apportioned him two eyes,

And a tongue, and a pair of lips,

And shown him the two overpasses [one leading to virtue, the other to vice]?

But, despite all that, he [in life] does not attempt to scale the track [of tough going].

And would you know what the track [of tough going in life] is?

It is providing freedom to the vassal [the subjugated],

Or providing food on a day of [personal] enervating hunger,

To a kindred orphan,

Or a dirt-poor dispossessed [person].

Only then would he have worked his way into [the company of] the committed muslims who consciously and collectively animate perseverance; and who consciously and collectively animate fellow-feelings of fealty.

Such are they who are the fellows of felicitous facilitation,

Whereas those who are in denial [of Our power and authority] — they are the fellows of dispirited travail,

A gripping fire descending upon them.