Say: "I know not whether the (Punishment) which ye are promised is near,(5748) or whether my Lord will appoint for it a distant term.
5748 The coming of Judgement is certain. But the exact time, relatively to our standards on this earth, no one can tell. Allah alone knows it. Even a Prophet of Allah, as such, does not know the Mysteries of the Unseen World, except insofar as they have been revealed to him by Allah's Revelation. Cf. 6:50, and notes 867- 868.