Sūrat al-Ḥāqqah is the sixty-ninth chapter of the Quran. It takes its name from its first verse. It comprises fifty-two verses and is seventy-eighth in order of revelation, and therefore a late Meccan surah believed to have been revealed shortly after Sūrat al-Mulk (67). Of the 114 chapters in the Quran, eighty-five or eighty-six are Meccan.
The surah is typical and consistent in its style with other Meccan surahs in its focus on eschatological matters and the use of short, and at times, rhyming verses. Broadly speaking, the surah has three themes, all related to the Day of Judgement:
- Verses 1-12 are a warning to avoid the fate of past nations that were destroyed when they rebelled against God and denied the resurrection, so He seized them with a terrible seizing (verse 10).
- Verses 13-37 describe the Day of Judgement in which mankind shall be divided into those given their scroll of deeds in their right hand (the righteous) versus those given in their left (the wretched). The Day of Resurrection, as the surah’s primary theme, is the focus here.
- Verses 38-52 assert the Quran’s veracity, that it is not forged, is indeed certain truth (verse 51), and a vouching for the Prophet that he is neither a poet nor a soothsayer, but a noble messenger (verse 40) from God. This third and last section of the surah is also related to the Day of Judgement, in that all that has been said about it in the preceding sections rests on the integrity of the Quran and the Apostle to whom it is revealed. Only one who is convinced of the Quran being God’s word will not doubt the reality and news of the resurrection that it recounts.
Besides the term al-ḥāqqah, this surah also refers to the Day of Resurrection as al-qāriʿah (the catastrophe) (verse 4), which is also the name of Sūrat al-Qāriʿah (101), and as al-wāqiʿah (the imminent) (verse 15), which is also the name of Sūrat al-Wāqiʿah (56). In the latter’s case, Sūrat al-Wāqiʿah has striking similarities to this chapter of the Quran. Both surahs, for example, share the same Day of Resurrection theme and provide detailed descriptions of the felicitous and the wretched. The last two verses in both chapters are also identical (except for a minor difference in pronouns in the second to last verse).
Upon closer examination, a more subtle relationship between these two chapters becomes apparent. As an example, Sūrat al-Wāqiʿah divides humans on Judgement Day into three groups: the people of the right hand (56:8, 56:27), the people of the left hand (56:9, 56:41), and the foremost ones that are the elite amongst the righteous, brought near [to Allah] (56:10-11). And in this surah as well, the Quran is described as drawing a different reaction from each one of these three groups whilst in this world. For the people of the right hand, who are the God-wary, the Quran is a reminder (verse 48); the people of the left hand simply deny the Quran (verse 49); and as for the foremost ones, to them, It is indeed certain truth (verse 51).
[1] Tamhid, 1/169. [2] ‘Meccan’ being any surah revealed anywhere before the Prophet’s migration to Medina, and ‘Medinan’ being any surah revealed anywhere (including Mecca) after the migration.