The Quran (Koran), 1st translation, - [red queen free ebook txt] 📗

the shadows that lie in triple masses;

"But not against the flame shall they shade or help you:"-

The sparks which it casteth out are like towers-

Like tawny camels.

Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!

On that day they shall not speak,

Nor shall it be permitted them to allege excuses.

Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!

This is the day of severing, when we will assemble you and your ancestors.

If now ye have any craft try your craft on me.

Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!

But the god-fearing shall be placed amid shades and fountains,

And fruits, whatsoever they shall desire:

"Eat and drink, with health,3 as the meed of your toils."

Thus recompense we the good.

Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!

"Eat ye and enjoy yourselves a little while. Verily, ye are doers of evil."

Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!

For when it is said to them, bend the knee, they bend it not.

Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture

In what other revelation after this will they believe?

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1 Lit. by the sent (fem.) one after another. Per missas. Mar. Either angels following in a continued series; or, winds, which disperse rain over the earth; or the successive verses of the Koran which disperse truth and distinguish truth from error.

2 Sura xliv. 40.

3 Maimonides says that the majority of the Jews hope that Messiah shall come and "raise the dead, and they shall be gathered into Paradise, and there shall eat and drink and be in good health to all eternity."-Sanhedrin, fol. 119, col. I.

SURA LXXVIII.-THE NEWS [XXXVII.]

MECCA.-41 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Of what ask they of one another?

Of the great NEWS.1

The theme of their disputes.

Nay! they shall certainly knows its truth!

Again. Nay! they shall certainly know it.

Have we not made the Earth a couch?

And the mountains its tent-stakes?

We have created you of two sexes,

And ordained your sleep for rest,

And ordained the night as a mantle,

And ordained the day for gaining livelihood,

And built above you seven solid2 heavens,

And placed therein a burning lamp;

And we send down water in abundance from the rain-clouds,

That we may bring forth by it corn and herbs,

And gardens thick with trees.

Lo! the day of Severance is fixed;

The day when there shall be a blast on the trumpet, and ye shall come in crowds,

And the heaven shall be opened and be full of portals,

And the mountains shall be set in motion, and melt into thin vapour.

Hell truly shall be a place of snares,

The home of transgressors,

To abide therein ages;

No coolness shall they taste therein nor any drink,

Save boiling water and running sores;

Meet recompense!

For they looked not forward to their account;

And they gave the lie to our signs, charging them with falsehood;

But we noted and wrote down all:

"Taste this then: and we will give you increase of nought but torment."

But, for the God-fearing is a blissful abode,

Enclosed gardens and vineyards;

And damsels with swelling breasts, their peers in age,

And a full cup:

There shall they hear no vain discourse nor any falsehood:

A recompense from thy Lord-sufficing gift!-

Lord of the heavens and of the earth, and of all that between3 them lieth-the
God of Mercy! But not a word shall they obtain from Him.

On the day whereon the Spirit4 and the Angels shall be ranged in order, they shall not speak: save he whom the God of Mercy shall permit, and who shall say that which is right.

This is the sure day. Whoso then will, let him take the path of return to his
Lord.

Verily, we warn you of a chastisement close at hand:

The day on which a man shall see the deeds which his hands have sent before him; and when the unbeliever shall say, "Oh! would I were dust!"

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1 Of the Resurrection. With regard to the date of this Sura, we can only be guided (I) by the general style of the earlier portion (to verse 37, which is analogous to that of the early Meccan Suras; (2) by verse 17, which pre- supposes lxxvii. 12; (3) by the obviously later style of verse 37 to the end.

2 See Sura ii. 27. This is the title given by the Talmudists to the fifth of the seven heavens.

3 This phrase is of constant recurrence in the Talmud. Maimonides, Yad Hach. i. 3, makes it one of the positive commands of the Rabbins to believe "that there exists a first Being . . . and that all things existing, Heaven and Earth, and whatever is between them, exist only through the truth of his existence."

4 Gabriel.

SURA LXXXVIII.-THE OVERSHADOWING [XXXVIII.]

MECCA.-26 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Hath the tidings of the day that shall OVERSHADOW, reached thee?

Downcast on that day shall be the countenances of some,

Travailing and worn,

Burnt at the scorching fire,

Made to drink from a fountain fiercely boiling.

No food shall they have but the fruit of Darih,1

Which shall not fatten, nor appease their hunger.

Joyous too, on that day, the countenances of others,

Well pleased with their labours past,

In a lofty garden:

No vain discourse shalt thou hear therein:

Therein shall be a gushing fountain,

Therein shall be raised couches,

And goblets ready placed,

And cushions laid in order,

And carpets spread forth.

Can they not look up to the clouds, how they are created;

And to the heaven how it is upraised;

And to the mountains how they are rooted;

And to the earth how it is outspread?

Warn thou then; for thou art a warner only:

Thou hast no authority over them:

But whoever shall turn back and disbelieve,

God shall punish him with the greater punishment.

Verily to Us shall they return;

Then shall it be Our's to reckon with them.

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1 The name of a bitter, thorny shrub.

SURA LXXXIX.-THE DAYBREAK [XXXIX.]

MECCA.-30 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

By the DAYBREAK and ten nights.1

By that which is double and that which is single,

By the night when it pursues its course!

Is there not in this an oath becoming a man of sense?

Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with Ad,

At Irem adorned with pillars,

Whose like have not been reared in these lands!

And with Themoud who hewed out the rocks in the valley;

And with Pharaoh the impaler;

Who all committed excesses in the lands,

And multiplied wickedness therein.

Wherefore thy Lord let loose on them the scourge of chastisement,2

For thy Lord standeth on a watch tower.

As to man, when his Lord trieth him and honoureth him and is bounteous to him,

Then saith he, "My Lord honoureth me:"

But when he proveth him and limiteth his gifts to him,

He saith, "My Lord despiseth me."

Aye. But ye honour not the orphan,

Nor urge ye one another to feed the poor,

And ye devour heritages, devouring greedily,

And ye love riches with exceeding love.

Aye. But when the earth shall be crushed with crushing, crushing,

And thy Lord shall come and the angels rank on rank,

And Hell on that day shall be moved up,3-Man shall on that day remember himself. But how shall remembrance help him?

He shall say, Oh! would that I had prepared for this my life! On that day none shall punish as God punisheth,

And none shall bind with such bonds as He.

Oh, thou soul which art at rest,

Return to thy Lord, pleased, and pleasing him:

Enter thou among my servants,

And enter thou my Paradise.

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1 Of the sacred month Dhu'lhajja.

2 Or, poured on them the mixed cup of chastisement.

3 The orthodox Muhammadans take this passage literally. Djelal says that hell will "be dragged up by 70,000 chains, each pulled by 70,000 angels," as if it were an enormous animal or locomotive engine.

SURA LXXV.-THE RESURRECTION [XL.]

MECCA.-40 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

It needeth not that I swear by the day of the RESURRECTION,

Or that I swear by the self-accusing soul.

Thinketh man that we shall not re-unite his bones?

Aye! his very finger tips are we able evenly to replace.

But man chooseth to deny what is before him:

He asketh, "When this day of Resurrection?"

But when the eye shall be dazzled,

And when the moon shall be darkened,

And the sun and the moon shall be together,1

On that day man shall cry, "Where is there a place to flee to?"

But in vain-there is no refuge-

With thy Lord on that day shall be the sole asylum.

On that day shall man be told of all that he hath done first and last;

Yea, a man shall be the eye witness against himself:

And even if he put forth his plea. . . .2

(Move not thy tongue in haste to follow and master this revelation:3

For we will see to the collecting and the recital of it;

But when we have recited it, then follow thou the recital,

And, verily, afterwards it shall be ours to make it clear to thee.)

Aye, but ye love the transitory,

And ye neglect the life to come.

On that day shall faces beam with light,

Outlooking towards their Lord;

And faces on that day shall be dismal,

As if they thought that some great calamity would befal them.

Aye, when the soul shall come up into the throat,

And there shall be a cry, "Who hath a charm that can restore him?"

And the man feeleth that the time of his departure is come,

And when one leg shall be laid over the other,4

To thy Lord on that day shall he be driven on;

For he believed not, and he did not pray,

But he called the truth a lie and turned his back,

Then, walking with haughty men, rejoined his people.

That Hour is nearer to thee and nearer,5

It is ever nearer to thee and nearer still.

Thinketh man that he shall be left supreme?

Was he not a mere embryo?6

Then he became thick blood of which God formed him and fashioned him;

And made him twain, male and female.

Is not He powerful enough to quicken the dead?

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1 Lit. shall be united. In the loss of light, or in the rising in the west.- Beidh.

2 Supply, it shall not be accepted.

3 Verses 16-19 are parenthetic, and either an address to Muhammad by Gabriel desiring him (I) not to be overcome by any fear of being unable to follow and retain the revelation of this particular Sura; (2) or, not to interrupt him, but to await the completion of the entire revelation before he should proceed to its public recital. In either case we are led to the conclusion that, from the first, Muhammad had formed the plan of promulging a written book. Comp. Sura xx. 112.

4 In the death-struggle.

5 Or, Therefore woe to thee, woe! And, again, woe to thee, woe. Thus Sale, Ullm. Beidhawi; who also gives the rendering in the text, which is that of Maracci.

6 Nonne fuit humor ex spermate quod spermatizatur.

SURA LXXXIII.-THOSE WHO STINT [XLI.]

MECCA.-36 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Woe to those who STINT the measure:

Who when they take by measure from others, exact the full;

But when they mete to them or weigh to them, minish-

What! have they no thought that they shall be raised again

For the great day?

The day when mankind shall stand before the Lord of the worlds.

Yes! the register