وَمَآ أَدْرَىٰكَ مَا ٱلْعَقَبَةُ
Easy-read (simplified)wamaa adraaka maa l-'aqabah
DIN 31635wamā ʾadrāka mā l-ʿaqabatu
EditionTanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
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.
And what will explain to you what the ascent is?
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
Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Ascent is
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
And what shall make thee know what the steep is
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
And who shall teach thee what the steep is
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
What shall make thee to understand what the cliff is
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
E nga e di ti se ç’është e përpjeta?
আর কীসে তোমাকে জানাবে, দুর্গম গিরিপথটি কী?
A šta ti misliš: šta je to uspon?
A što ti misliš: što je to uspon?
Ko holɗum anndin maa ko woni palal?
და რამ გამცნოს თუ რა არის აღმართი?!
Und was lässt dich wissen, was der steile Passweg (, der zum Eintritt in den Paradiesgarten überquert werden muss,) ist?
Και πώς να ξέρεις (ω, Προφήτη) τι είναι αυτό το εμπόδιο (που πρέπει να το ξεπεράσει για να εισέλθει στον Παράδεισο);
और तुम्हें किस चीज़ ने ज्ञात कराया कि वह दुर्लभ 'घाटी' क्या है?
Che ne sai della Salita?
12. Ir kas tau paaiškins, kas yra (prasiveržimas pro) sunkus kelias?
Tulluttiin maal akka taate maaltu si beeksise?
А откуда тебе знать, что такое крутая тропа?
А шта ти мислиш: како се на благодатима захвалан може бити?
Na nini kitakachokujuvya ni nini njia ya vikwazo vya milimani?
Vad kan få dig att förstå vad den branta vägen är?
Sarp yokuşun ne olduğunu sen ne bileceksin?
اور کیا سمجھا کہ گھاٹی ہے کیا؟.
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
وَهَدَيْنَٰهُ ٱلنَّجْدَيْنِ
Easy-read (simplified)wahadaynaahu n-najdayn
DIN 31635wahadaynāhu n-naǧdayni
And We showed him the two ways?
And guide him to the parting of the mountain ways
and guided him in the two highways
And guided him to the two highways
and shewn him the two highways of good and evil
فَلَا ٱقْتَحَمَ ٱلْعَقَبَةَ
Easy-read (simplified)falaa qtahama l-'aqabah
DIN 31635falā qtaḥama l-ʿaqabata
But he did not brave the ascent.
But he hath not attempted the Ascent
but he will not attempt the steep
Yet he attempted not the steep
Yet he attempteth not the cliff
90:12 — the verse above
فَكُّ رَقَبَةٍ
Easy-read (simplified)fakku raqabah
DIN 31635fakku raqabatin
The translators word this verse differently
The freeing of a slave.
(It is) to free a slave
It is freeing captives
It is to ransom the captive
It is to free the captive
أَوْ إِطْعَٰمٌ فِى يَوْمٍ ذِى مَسْغَبَةٍ
Easy-read (simplified)aw it'aamun fee yawmin dhee masghabah
DIN 31635ʾaw ʾiṭʿāmun fī yawmin ḏī masġabatin
Or the feeding on a day of hunger.
And to feed in the day of hunger
or feeding on the day of famine
Or to feed in the day of famine
or to feed, in the day of famine
EditionTanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) ·Uthmani, Version 1.1·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution 3.0·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا الْعَقَبَةُ
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 — 0.64 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/