أَوْلَىٰ لَكَ فَأَوْلَىٰ
Easy-read (simplified)awlaa laka fa'awlaa
DIN 31635ʾawlā laka faʾawlā
EditionTanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
The translators word this verse differently
Marked words appear in this translation and in no other English translation of this verse. Common small words and older spellings are not marked. The marks show where the wording differs, not where the meaning does.
Woe to you; and woe.
Talal Itani, ClearQuran ·ClearQuran, "God" edition, EPUB·Talal Itani / ClearQuran.com ·Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International·retrieved 7 Sep 2026
Translation by Talal Itani, ClearQuran.com https://clearquran.com
Nearer unto thee and nearer
Translation Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran·Public domain — copyright term expired
Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran ·1930 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work ·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
woe to thee, and woe to thee
Translation Edward Henry Palmer, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
Edward Henry Palmer, English translation of the Qur'an ·1880 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work ·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
That Hour is nearer to thee and nearer
Translation John Medows Rodwell, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
John Medows Rodwell, English translation of the Qur'an ·1861 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work ·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
Wherefore, woe be unto thee; woe
Translation George Sale, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
George Sale, English translation of the Qur'an ·1734 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work ·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
Mjerë ti, mjerë!
(আল্লাহ বলবেন,) দুর্ভোগ তোমার জন্য এবং দুর্ভোগ!
Teško tebi! Teško tebi!
Teško tebi! Teško tebi!
Halkaare woodaniima e halkaare.
ვაი (უბედურება) შენ, და ვაი (უბედურება; ეს იმიტომ, რომ ტანჯვა-წამება უკვა ახლოსაა)
Wehe dir, so wehe (dir)!
Aλίμονο σ' εσένα (ω, άπιστε)! Και (πάλι) αλίμονο σ' εσένα!
तेरे लिए विनाश है, फिर तेरे लिए बर्बादी है।
Guai a te, guai!
34. Vargas tau ir vargas!
Badiin siif haa ta’u! Ammas badiin!
Горе тебе, горе!
Тешко теби! Тешко теби!
Ole wako, ole wako!
Elände över dig! Elände!
“Bu azap sana layıktır, layık!"
افسوس ہے تجھ پر حسرت ہے تجھ پر.
5 cleared translations, newest first, by year of publication, so the modern English comes before the historical ones. That is an ordering by date, not a judgement. Each is shown complete — this platform never excerpts a translation — and each renders under its translator's name. No translation here is marked as the correct one.
Which translations appear here is set by copyright: they are the ones whose rights could be documented and cleared. The selection is not a judgement that these are the best.
Easy-read is a simplified pronunciation, not authoritative — a rule-by-rule romanisation, not a reading. Each verse ends in its pause form, as it is said when you stop there. Pauses inside a verse and other tajwid rules are not shown. It is derived from the Tanzil Simple edition, while the Arabic above is the Uthmani edition; both are cleared, but they are not the same edition and their orthography differs.
shown so it's never read alone
وَلَٰكِن كَذَّبَ وَتَوَلَّىٰ
Easy-read (simplified)walaakin kadhdhaba watawallaa
DIN 31635walākin kaḏḏaba watawallā
The translators word this verse differently
But he denied and turned away.
But he denied and flouted
but he said it was a lie, and turned his back
But he called the truth a lie and turned his back
but he accused God's apostle of imposture, and turned back from obeying him
ثُمَّ ذَهَبَ إِلَىٰٓ أَهْلِهِۦ يَتَمَطَّىٰٓ
Easy-read (simplified)thumma dhahaba ilaa ahlihi yatamattaa
DIN 31635ṯumma ḏahaba ʾilā ʾahlihi yatamaṭṭā
The translators word this verse differently
Then he went to his family, full of pride.
Then went he to his folk with glee
Then he went to his people haughtily
Then, walking with haughty men, rejoined his people
Then he departed unto his family, walking with a haughty mien
75:34 — the verse above
ثُمَّ أَوْلَىٰ لَكَ فَأَوْلَىٰٓ
Easy-read (simplified)thumma awlaa laka fa'awlaa
DIN 31635ṯumma ʾawlā laka faʾawlā
The translators word this verse differently
Then again: Woe to you; and woe.
Again nearer unto thee and nearer (is the doom)
again woe to thee, and woe to thee
It is ever nearer to thee and nearer still
And again, woe be unto thee; woe
أَيَحْسَبُ ٱلْإِنسَٰنُ أَن يُتْرَكَ سُدًى
Easy-read (simplified)ayahsabu l-'insaanu an yutraka sudaa
DIN 31635ʾayaḥsabu l-ʾinsānu ʾan yutraka sudan
Does man think that he will be left without purpose?
Thinketh man that he is to be left aimless
Does man think that he shall be left to himself
Thinketh man that he shall be left supreme
Doth man think that he shall be left at full liberty, without control
EditionTanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) ·Uthmani, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
أَوْلَىٰ لَكَ فَأَوْلَىٰ
EditionTanzil Qur'an text (Simple) ·Simple, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
These figures count the words the translations share. They measure wording, not meaning, and they do not say which translation is right.
Derived measure: mean pairwise Jaccard distance over the lowercased word sets of the 5 renderings above — 0.72 on a scale where 0 means identical wording and 1 means no shared words. It is computed, not judged.
The page says a verse is worded differently only above the cut below. The cut is a stated convention, not a property of the text, and it can be changed.
One bar per pair of renderings, longest bar for the pair sharing fewest words. Every pair is shown; none is singled out.
The platform does not say which is right, and does not characterise what the difference means. The renderings are placed together so the difference is visible; reading it is the reader's work.
SourceTanzil Qur'an text (Simple) ·Simple, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
SourceTanzil Qur'an text (Simple) ·Simple, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
7 sources stand behind this page. Each is listed once, in the order the page first cites it, with the licence it was cleared under and what was actually read. Nothing on this page rests on a source that is not here.
CLEARED. Licence read verbatim from the block embedded in this very file. Ingested exactly as shipped: no normalisation, no stripping of marks, no Unicode recomposition.
CLEARED on a licence read first-hand from the translator's own download page, not from an aggregator. Tanzil also hosts this translation, but under a blanket "non-commercial purposes only" term that directs the user to the translator or publisher for permission - a hosting disclaimer, not a grant - so the grant was taken from the licensor directly. The "God" edition was ingested; ClearQuran also publishes an "Allah" edition, differing in how the divine name is rendered, which is not ingested.
CLEARED ON THE WORK, WITH TWO RECORDED CAVEATS ON THIS COPY. (1) Rights basis is the expired copyright term, NOT the redistributing repository's licence. That repository dedicates its contents to the public domain under the Unlicense while also redistributing plainly in-copyright translations (Abdel Haleem, Saheeh International, The Study Quran), so it is dedicating rights it cannot hold and its blanket grant is not relied upon here. (2) The file declares its own upstream as tanzil.net, and Tanzil attaches a non-commercial condition to its TRANSLATION distributions, though not to its Qur'anic text. Since Pickthall's copyright has expired, nobody holds rights in these words and no licence is required from anyone; Tanzil's terms are a contract binding those who download from Tanzil, which we did not. The chain is nonetheless not spotless and Anwar may prefer a clean digitisation of the 1930 printing. NOT VERIFIED: that this digital text matches the 1930 first printing rather than a later revised edition. No page images were collated. Recorded as unverified rather than presented as established. SERVED TEXT DIFFERS FROM THE CITED FILE AT ONE VERSE, 37:97: the file reads "red-hotfire" (a glued token, also in Gutenberg #16955); the served row reads "red-hot fire", restored 2026-09-13 from Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (London: George Allen & Unwin, printed for Alfred A. Knopf; 1930), p. 460, XXXVII 97 - scan archive.org in.ernet.dli.2015.216140, PDF page 475; banked data/derivation-sources/pickthall-1930-dli-2015.216140-text.pdf (sha256 70e81146c97fa3a590243a82e04e349108546074787e2551a78c616202138870) on Anwar Malik's grant.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. The digital edition's upstream is not stated by the redistributor and the printing is unverified. No statement of purpose is recorded for Palmer because none was sourced from his own preface in this pass; nothing is asserted on his behalf.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. TWO edition caveats. (1) The upstream is not stated by the redistributor. (2) Rodwell's own edition PRESENTS THE SURAHS IN HIS OWN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, not the mushaf order — he says so in his preface. This digital text is keyed to mushaf order, so it derives from a restored-order printing (such as the Everyman edition) rather than from Rodwell's own arrangement. Which printing is not stated and has not been established.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. The digital edition's upstream is NOT STATED by the redistributor, so the printing it represents is unverified; Sale's text was reprinted and re-edited many times between 1734 and 1900. Recorded as unverified rather than assumed to be the first edition.
CLEARED. Parallel edition, held in ayah_text_variants. It sits alongside the Uthmani spine for search normalisation and is never used to correct it.
Qur'anic text from the Tanzil Project. Copyright (C) 2007-2026 Tanzil Project License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Source: tanzil.net · Updates: tanzil.net/updates/ https://tanzil.net/updates/