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

of the wicked is in Sidjin.1

And who shall make thee understand what Sidjin is?

It is a book distinctly written.

Woe, on that day, to those who treated our signs as lies,

Who treated the day of judgment as a lie!

None treat it as a lie, save the transgressor, the criminal,

Who, when our signs are rehearsed to him, saith, "Tales of the Ancients!"

Yes; but their own works have got the mastery over their hearts.

Yes; they shall be shut out as by a veil from their Lord on that day;

Then shall they be burned in Hell-fire:

Then shall it be said to them, "This is what ye deemed a lie."

Even so. But the register of the righteous is in Illiyoun.

And who shall make thee understand what Illiyoun is?

A book distinctly written;

The angels who draw nigh unto God attest it.

Surely, among delights shall the righteous dwell!

Seated on bridal couches they will gaze around;

Thou shalt mark in their faces the brightness of delight;

Choice sealed wine shall be given them to quaff,

The seal of musk. For this let those pant who pant for bliss-

Mingled therewith shall be the waters of Tasnim-2

Fount whereof they who draw nigh to God shall drink.

The sinners indeed laugh the faithful to scorn:

And when they pass by them they wink at one another,-

And when they return to their own people, they return jesting,

And when they see them they say, "These are the erring ones."

And yet they have no mission to be their guardians.

Therefore, on that day the faithful shall laugh the infidels to scorn,

As reclining on bridal couches they behold them.

Shall not the infidels be recompensed according to their works?

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1 Sidjin is a prison in Hell which gives its name to the register of actions there kept, as Illiyoun, a name of the lofty apartments of Paradise, is transferred to the register of the righteous.

2 Derived from the root sanima, to be high: this water being conveyed to the highest apartments in the Pavilions of Paradise.

SURA LXIX.-THE INEVITABLE [XLII.]

MECCA.-52 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

The INEVITABLE!

And who shall make thee comprehend what the Inevitable is?

Themoud and Ad treated the day of Terrors1 as a lie.

So as to Themoud,2 they were destroyed by crashing thunder bolts;

And as to Ad, they were destroyed by a roaring and furious blast.

It did the bidding of God3 against them seven nights and eight days together, during which thou mightest have seen the people laid low, as though they had been the trunks of hollow palms;

And couldst thou have seen one of them surviving?

Pharaoh also, and those who flourished before him, and the overthrown cities, committed sin,-

And disobeyed the Sent one of their Lord; therefore did he chastise them with an accumulated chastisement.

When the Flood rose high, we bare you in the Ark,

That we might make that event a warning to you, and that the retaining ear might retain it.

But when one blast shall be blown on the trumpet,

And the earth and the mountains shall be upheaved, and shall both be crushed into dust at a single crushing,

On that day the woe that must come suddenly shall suddenly come,4

And the heaven shall cleave asunder, for on that day it shall be fragile;

And the angels shall be on its sides, and over them on that day eight shall bear up the throne of thy Lord.

On that day ye shall be brought before Him: none of your hidden deeds shall remain hidden:

And he who shall have his book given to him in his right hand, will say to his friends, "Take ye it; read ye my book;

I ever thought that to this my reckoning I should come."

And his shall be a life that shall please him well,

In a lofty garden,

Whose clusters shall be near at hand:

"Eat ye and drink with healthy relish, as the meed of what ye sent on beforehand in the days which are past."

But he who shall have his book given into his left hand, will say, "O that my book had never been given me!

And that I had never known my reckoning!

O that death had made an end of me!

My wealth hath not profited me!

My power hath perished from me!"

"Lay ye hold on him and chain him,

Then at the Hell-fire burn him,

Then into a chain whose length is seventy cubits thrust him;

For he believed not in God, the Great,

And was not careful to feed the poor;

No friend therefore shall he have here this day,

Nor food, but corrupt sores,

Which none shall eat but the sinners."

It needs not that I swear by what ye see,

And by that which ye see not,

That this verily is the word of an apostle worthy of all honour!

And that it is not the word of a poet-how little do ye believe!

Neither is it the word of a soothsayer (Kahin)-how little do ye receive warning!

It is a missive from the Lord of the worlds.

But if Muhammad had fabricated concerning us any sayings,

We had surely seized him by the right hand,

And had cut through the vein of his neck.5

Nor would We have withheld any one of you from him.

But, verily, It (the Koran) is a warning for the God-fearing;

And we well know that there are of you who treat it as a falsehood.

But it shall be the despair of infidels,

For it is the very truth of sure knowledge.

Praise, then, the name of thy Lord, the Great.

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1 Thus Beidh., Sale, etc. But with reference to another sense of the root karaa, it may be rendered the day of decision, the day on which man's lot shall be decided.

2 On Ad and Themoud. See Sura vii. 63-77.

3 Lit. God subjected it to himself, availed himself of it against them.

4 El-wakia, the sudden event, the calamity; the woe that must break in upon Heaven and Earth. The same word is used, Sura lvi. 1, and ci. 1, for the Resurrection and Day of Judgment.

5 In allusion to the mode of executing criminals in many eastern countries.

SURA LI.-THE SCATTERING [XLIII.]

MECCA.-60 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

By the clouds1 which scatter with SCATTERING,

And those which bear their load,

And by those which speed lightly along,

And those which apportion by command!

True, indeed, is that with which ye are threatened,

And lo! the judgment will surely come.2

By the star-tracked heaven!

Ye are discordant in what ye say;

But whose turneth him from the truth, is turned from it by a divine decree.

Perish the liars,

Who are bewildered in the depths of ignorance!

They ask, "When this day of judgment?"

On that day they shall be tormented at the fire.

"Taste ye of this your torment, whose speedy coming ye challenged."

But the God-fearing shall dwell amid gardens and fountains,

Enjoying what their Lord hath given them, because, aforetime they were well- doers:

But little of the night was it that they slept,

And at dawn they prayed for pardon,

And gave due share of their wealth to the suppliant and the outcast.

On Earth are signs for men of firm belief,

And also in your own selves: Will ye not then behold them?

The Heaven hath sustenance for you, and it containeth that which you are promised.

By the Lord then of the heaven and of the earth, I swear that this is the truth, even as ye speak yourselves.3

Hath the story reached thee of Abraham's honoured guests?4

When they went in unto him and said, "Peace!" he replied, "Peace:-they are strangers."

And he went apart to his family, and brought a fatted calf,

And set it before them. He said, "Eat ye not?"

And he conceived a fear of them. They said to him, "Fear not;" and announced to him a wise son.

His wife came up with outcry: she smote her face and said, "What I, old and barren!"

They said, "Thus saith thy Lord. He truly is the Wise, the Knowing."

Said he, "And what, O messengers, is your errand?"

They said, "To a wicked people are we sent,

To hurl upon them stones of clay,

Destined5 by thy Lord for men guilty of excesses."

And we brought forth the believers who were in the city:

But we found not in it but one family of Muslims.

And signs we left in it for those who dread the afflictive chastisement,-

And in Moses: when we sent him to Pharaoh with manifest power:

But relying on his forces6 he turned his back and said, "Sorcerer, or
Possessed."

So we seized him and his hosts and cast them into the sea; for of all blame was he worthy.

And in Ad: when we sent against them the desolating blast:

It touched not aught over which it came, but it turned it to dust.

And in Themoud:7 when it was said to them, "Enjoy yourselves for yet a while."

But they rebelled against their Lord's command: so the tempest took them as they watched its coming.8

They were not able to stand upright, and could not help themselves.

And we destroyed the people of Noah, before them; for an impious people were they.

And the Heaven-with our hands have we built it up, and given it its expanse;

And the Earth-we have stretched it out like a carpet; and how

smoothly have we spread it forth!

And of everything have we created pairs: that haply ye may reflect.

Fly then to God: I come to you from him a plain warner.

And set not up another god with God: I come to you from him a plain warner.

Even thus came there no apostle to those who flourished before them, but they exclaimed, "Sorcerer, or Possessed."

Have they made a legacy to one another of this scoff? Yes, they are a rebel people.

Turn away, then, from them, and thou shalt not incur reproach:

Yet warn them, for, in truth, warning will profit the believers.

I have not created Djinn and men, but that they should worship me:

I require not sustenance from them, neither require I that they feed me:

Verily, God is the sole sustainer: possessed of might: the unshaken!

Therefore to those who injure thee shall be a fate like the fate of

their fellows of old. Let them not challenge me to hasten it.

Woe then to the infidels, because of their threatened day.

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1 Lit. (I swear) by those which scatter (i.e., the rain) with a scattering, (2) and by those which carry a burden, (3) and by those which run lightly, (4) and by those which divide a matter, or by command. The participles are all in the feminine: hence some interpret verse 1 of winds; verse 2 of clouds; verse 3 of ships; verse 4 of angels.

2 Comp. note at Sura lvi. 1, p. 65.

3 That is, this oath is for the confirmation of the truth, as ye are wont to confirm things one among another by an oath.

4 Comp. Sura xi. 72, and xv. 51. From the want of connection with what precedes, it is highly probable that the whole passage from verse 24 60 did not originally form a part of this Sura, but was added at a later period, perhaps in the recension of the text under Othman.

5 Lit. marked, with the names of the individuals to be slain, say the commentators.

6 Or, with his nobles.

7 For Ad and Themoud, see Sura xi.

8 That is, in broad daylight. Thus Beidh. Comp. Sura xlvi. 22.

SURA LII.-THE MOUNTAIN [XLIV.]

MECCA.-49 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

BY the MOUNTAIN,

And by the Book written

On an outspread roll,

And by the frequented fane,1

And