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

Those whom ye call on, themselves desire union with their Lord,18 striving which of them shall be nearest to him: they also hope for his mercy and fear his chastisement. Verily the chastisement of thy Lord is to be dreaded.

There is no city which we will not destroy before the day of Resurrection, or chastise it with a grievous chastisement. This is written in the Book.

Nothing hindered us from sending thee with the power of working miracles, except that the peoples of old treated them as lies. We gave to Themoud19 the she-camel before their very eyes, yet they maltreated her! We send not a prophet with miracles but to strike terror.

And remember when we said to thee, Verily, thy Lord is round about mankind; we ordained the vision20 which we shewed thee, and likewise the cursed tree of the Koran, only for men to dispute of; we will strike them with terror; but it shall only increase in them enormous wickedness:

And when we said to the Angels, "Prostrate yourselves before Adam:" and they all prostrated them, save Eblis. "What!" said he, "shall I bow me before him whom thou hast created of clay?

Seest thou this man whom thou hast honoured above me? Verily, if thou respite me till the day of Resurrection, I will destroy his offspring, except a few."

He said, "Begone; but whosoever of them shall follow thee, verily, Hell shall be your recompense; an ample recompense!

And entice such of them as thou canst by thy voice; assault them with thy horsemen and thy footmen;21 be their partner in their riches and in their children, and make them promises: but Satan shall make them only deceitful promises.

As to my servants, no power over them shalt thou have; And thy Lord will be their sufficient guardian."

It is your Lord who speedeth onward the ships for you in the sea, that ye may seek of his abundance; for he is merciful towards you.

When a misfortune befalleth you out at sea, they whom ye invoke are not to be found: God alone is there: yet when he bringeth you safe to dry land, ye place yourselves at a distance from Him. Ungrateful is man.

What! are ye sure, then, that he will not cleave the sides of the earth for you? or that he will not send against you a whirlwind charged with sands? Then shall ye find no protector.

Or are ye sure that he will not cause you to put back to sea a second time, and send against you a storm blast, and drown you, for that ye have been thankless? Then shall ye find no helper against us therein.

And now have we honoured the children of Adam: by land and by sea have we carried them: food have we provided for them of good things, and with endowments beyond many of our creatures have we endowed them.

One day we will summon all men with their leaders: they whose book shall be given into their right hand, shall read their book, and not be wronged a thread:

And he who has been blind here, shall be blind hereafter, and wander yet more from the way.

And, verily, they had well nigh beguiled thee from what we revealed to thee, and caused thee to invent some other thing in our name: but in that case they would surely have taken thee as a friend;22

And had we not settled thee, thou hadst well nigh leaned to them a little:

In that case we would surely have made thee taste of woe23 in life and of woe in death: then thou shouldest not have found a helper against us.

And truly they had almost caused thee to quit the land, in order wholly to drive thee forth from it:24 but then, themselves should have tarried but a little after thee.

This was our way with the Apostles we have already sent before thee, and in this our way thou shalt find no change.

Observe prayer at sunset, till the first darkening of the night, and the daybreak reading-for the daybreak reading hath its witnesses,

And watch unto it in the night: this shall be an excess in service:25 it may be that thy Lord will raise thee to a glorious station:

And say, "O my Lord, cause me to enter26 with a perfect entry, and to come forth with a perfect forthcoming, and give me from thy presence a helping power:"

And SAY: Truth is come and falsehood is vanished. Verily, falsehood is a thing that vanisheth.

And we send down of the Koran that which is a healing and a mercy to the faithful: But it shall only add to the ruin of the wicked.

When we bestow favours on man, he withdraweth and goeth aside; but when evil toucheth him, he is despairing.

SAY: Every one acteth after his own manner: but your Lord well knoweth who is best guided in his path.

And they will ask thee of the Spirit.27 SAY: The Spirit proceedeth at my
Lord's command: but of knowledge, only a little to you is given.

If we pleased, we could take away what we have revealed to thee: none couldst thou then find thee to undertake thy cause with us,

Save as a mercy from thy Lord; great, verily, is his favour towards thee.

SAY: Verily, were men and Djinn assembled to produce the like of this Koran, they could not produce its like, though the one should help the other.

And of a truth we have set out to men every kind of similitude in this Koran, but most men have refused everything except unbelief.

And they say, "By no means will we believe on thee till thou cause a fountain to gush forth for us from the earth;

Or, till thou have a garden of palm-trees and grapes, and thou cause forth- gushing rivers to gush forth in its midst;

Or thou make the heaven to fall on us, as thou hast given out, in pieces; or thou bring God and the angels to vouch for thee;

Or thou have a house of gold; or thou mount up into Heaven; nor will we believe in thy mounting up, till thou send down to us a book which we may read." SAY: Praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?

And what hindereth men from believing, when the guidance hath come to them, but that they say, "Hath God sent a man as an apostle?"

SAY: Did angels walk the earth as its familiars, we had surely sent them an angel-apostle out of Heaven.

SAY: God is witness enough between you and me. His servants He scanneth, eyeth.

And He whom God shall guide will be guided indeed; and whom he shall mislead thou shalt find none to assist, but Him: and we will gather them together on the day of the resurrection, on their faces, blind and dumb and deaf: Hell shall be their abode: so oft as its fires die down, we will rekindle the flame.

This shall be their reward for that they believed not our signs and said, "When we shall have become bones and dust, shall we surely be raised a new creation?"

Do they not perceive that God, who created the Heavens and the Earth, is able to create their like? And he hath ordained them a term; there is no doubt of it: but the wicked refuse everything except unbelief.

SAY: If ye held the treasures of my Lord's mercy ye would certainly refrain from them through fear of spending them: for man is covetous.

We therefore gave to Moses nine clear signs. Ask thou, therefore, the children of Israel how it was when he came unto them, and Pharaoh said to him, "Verily, I deem thee, O Moses, a man enchanted."

Said Moses, "Thou knowest that none hath sent down these clear signs but the Lord of the Heavens and of the Earth; and I surely deem thee, O Pharaoh, a person lost."

So Pharaoh sought to drive them out of the land; but we drowned him and all his followers.

And after his death, we said to the children of Israel, "Dwell ye in the land:" and when the promise of the next life shall come to pass, we will bring you both up together to judgment. In truth have we sent down the Koran, and in truth hath it descended, and we have only sent thee to announce and to warn.

And we have parcelled out the Koran into sections, that thou mightest recite it unto men by slow degrees, and we have sent it down piecemeal.

SAY: Believe ye therein or believe ye not? They verily to whom knowledge had been given previously, fall on their faces worshipping when it is recited to them, and say: "Glory be to God! the promise of our Lord is made good!"

They fall down on their faces weeping, and It increaseth their humility.

SAY: Call upon God (Allah),28 or call upon the God of Mercy (Arrahman), by whichsoever ye will invoke him: He hath most excellent names. And be not loud in thy prayer, neither pronounce it too low;29 but between these follow a middle way:

And SAY: Praise be to God who hath not begotten a son, who hath no partner in the Kingdom, nor any protector on account of weakness. And magnify him by proclaiming His greatness.30

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1 Verses 12, 23-41, 75-82, 87, are supposed by many commentators to have originated at Medina.

2 Waquidy says the night-journey took place on the 17th of Rabhy' 1, a twelvemonth before the Hejira.

3 Of Jerusalem; and thence through the seven heavens to the throne of God on the back of Borak, accompanied by Gabriel, according to some traditions; while others, and those too of early date, regard it as no more than a vision. It was, however, in all probability a dream. Muir ii. 219; Nöld. p. 102, who give the Muhammadan sources of information.

4 It is probable that as this verse has no real or apparent connection with the preceding, a verse may have been lost, and that verse 1 has been placed at the head of the Sura merely because the night-journey is elsewhere alluded to in it.

5 According to the commentators the slaughter of Isaiah and the imprisonment of Jeremiah, punished by the invasion of the Assyrians.

6 Over Sennacherib.

7 The slaying Zacharias, John Baptist, and Jesus, punished by the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Comp. Tr. Gittin, fol. 57, where we read of the sufferings drawn down upon the Jews in consequence of the former of these crimes.

8 That is, if ye return to sin, we will return to punish.

9 Lit. bird.

10 Comp. Mischnah Aboth, 3, 20.

11 Comp. in Heb. Isai. liii. 3.

12 Lit. lower a wing of humility.

13 Comp. Sura [lxxxix.] vi. 151; lxxxi. 8, p. 45. Zaid, the sceptical seeker after truth, is reported to have discouraged the killing of daughters, saying, "I will support them." Kitâb al Wackidi, p. 255. See note at Sura [xcvii.] iii. 18.

14 Or, next of kin.

15 Or, run not after vain things which will avail nought. Or, accuse not any of a crime if thou art not sure of his guilt.

16 Used a variety of arguments and illustrations.

17 Thus Tr. Chagiga, fol. 9 b. "There are seven heavens (rakian): the veil, the firmament, the clouds, the habitation, the abode, the fixed seat, the araboth." See Wetst. on 2 Cor. xii. 2.

18 In obvious allusion to the saint-worship of the Christians.

19 See Sura [lxxxvii.] vii. 71.

20 See note on v. 1. The tree is Zakkoum, Sura [xlv.] lvi. The Rabbins teach that food of the bitterest herbs is one of the punishments of Hell. See Schröder's Rabb. und. Talm. Judenthum, p. 403.

21 That is, with all thy might.

22 Zamakshary relates that this passage was revealed when the Thaqyfites in framing the document of agreement between themselves and Muhammad, required that the words requiring the prostrations in worship should not be added. The writer looked at the prophet, who stood by in silence, when Omar stood up and drew his sword with menacing words. They replied, We speak not thee but to Muhammad. Then this verse was revealed. Thus Dr. Sprenger. Life, p. 186. He renders