Al-Qari'ah 101
The Striking CalamityHow to read the Hangul
الرَّحْمَٰنِ르r라흐마니 بِسْمِ비스밀
- Bold = the stressed syllable of the word; a little stronger.
- Overline = long vowel (madd): hold it about two beats. Length matters most in recitation.
- Tiny = no vowel in the Arabic here — just the consonant, short.
- Small Latin letter = a sound Korean lacks, on the next syllable: f upper teeth on lower lip · θ/ð tongue tip between the teeth · r rolled tongue tip (a bare ㄹ is l).
How to read the Hangul
beginning the Christ salvation
- Bold, larger (ˈ) = say it strong and a little longer — the stressed syllable.
- Faint = weak and short (a reduced vowel). Don't give every syllable equal weight.
- Tiny 으 · 트 · 스 = barely voiced. English has no vowel there — stop on the consonant.
- Whole word faint (the, of, and, to…) = light and quick in a sentence; stress the content words.
- Small f v θ ð r = sounds Korean doesn't have — f: upper teeth on the lower lip; v: the same, voiced; θ/ð: tongue tip between the teeth; r: tongue curled back, touching nothing.
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Surah
About this surah
Classed as a Meccan sura, it opens with a single exclamation, 'The Striking Calamity!', followed by two questions that stress how hard it is to grasp: what is it, and what will make you know what it is? The answer is a picture of that Day. People will be like scattered moths, and the mountains like fluffed-up tufts of wool. The sura then turns to the weighing of deeds. The one whose scales are heavy will be in a pleasing life, while the one whose scales are light will have an abyss as his refuge. The pattern of question and answer returns in the last two verses: what will make you know what that abyss is? It is a blazing Fire. The sura is built around this repeated questioning and the image of the scales.
- The Striking Calamity
- Moths and scattered wool
- Heavy and light scales
- The abyss of Fire
The name It is named after 'the Striking Calamity' (al-Qari'ah), the exclamation of verse 1, repeated three times in verses 1–3.