Texts of Islam

The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'ân,: 44. ad-Dukhan: The Evident Smoke

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This is a Quranic surah (chapter) in M.M. Pickthall's 1930 English translation, *The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'ân* — a landmark rendering notable for being the first by a native English speaker who was also a Muslim. Surah 44, "Ad-Dukhan" (The Evident Smoke), belongs to the Meccan tradition and addresses an audience of disbelievers through eschatological warning. Its central argument moves through three registers: divine authority (the Quran was revealed on a blessed night as mercy and wisdom from God), historical precedent (Pharaoh's people were destroyed for rejecting Moses, serving as a cautionary parallel to the Meccans rejecting Muhammad), and eschatological reckoning (a coming Day of Decision will divide the condemned, who eat from the torturous tree of Zaqqum, from the righteous, who enjoy paradise's gardens, silk, and fruit). The surah's distinctive rhetorical strategy is its use of the "smoke" portent — interpreted variously as a literal future sign or a past famine — as the hook for a wider argument that human mockery of prophets ("a madman," "one taught by others") has historically preceded catastrophic divine punishment. Pickthall's translation preserves the surah's characteristic rhythmic terseness and its direct second-person address shifting between Muhammad and the disbelievers. Readers drawn to Quranic eschatology, the Moses narrative in Islamic scripture, or the history of Quran translation into English will find this surah concise and representative.

The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'ân,: 44. ad-Dukhan: The Evident Smoke

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