Then, when he pleaseth, will raise him again to life.
Aye! but man hath not yet fulfilled the bidding of his Lord.
Let man look at his food:
It was We who rained down the copious rains,
Then cleft the earth with clefts,
And caused the upgrowth of the grain,
And grapes and healing herbs,
And the olive and the palm,
And enclosed gardens thick with trees,
And fruits and herbage,
For the service of yourselves and of your cattle.
But when the stunning trumpet-blast shall arrive,4
On that day shall a man fly from his brother,
And his mother and his father,
And his wife and his children;
For every man of them on that day his own concerns shall be enough.
There shall be faces on that day radiant,
Laughing and joyous:
And faces on that day with dust upon them:
Blackness shall cover them!
These are the Infidels, the Impure.
_______________________
1 We are told in the traditions, etc., that when engaged in converse with
Walid, a chief man among the Koreisch, Muhammad was interrupted by the blind
Abdallah Ibn Omm Maktûm, who asked to hear the Koran. The Prophet spoke very
roughly to him at the time, but afterwards repented, and treated him ever
after with the greatest respect. So much so, that he twice made him Governor
of Medina.
2 That is, if he does not embrace Islam, and so become pure from sin, thou
wilt not be to blame; thou art simply charged with the delivery of a message
of warning.
3 Ex spermate.
4 Descriptions of the Day of Judgment now become very frequent. See Sura
lxxxv. p. 42, and almost every Sura to the lv., after which they become
gradually more historical.
SURA LXXXVII.-THE MOST HIGH [XXV.]
MECCA.-19 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
PRAISE the name of thy Lord THE MOST HIGH,
Who hath created and balanced all things,
Who hath fixed their destinies and guideth them,
Who bringeth forth the pasture,
And reduceth it to dusky stubble.
We will teach thee to recite the Koran, nor aught shalt thou forget,
Save what God pleaseth; for he knoweth alike things manifest and hidden;
And we will make easy to thee our easy ways.
Warn, therefore, for the warning is profitable:
He that feareth God will receive the warning,-
And the most reprobate only will turn aside from it,
Who shall be exposed to the terrible fire,
In which he shall not die, and shall not live.
Happy he who is purified by Islam,
And who remembereth the name of his Lord and prayeth.
But ye prefer this present life,
Though the life to come is better and more enduring.
This truly is in the Books of old,
The Books of Abraham1 and Moses.
_______________________
1 Thus the Rabbins attribute the Book Jezirah to Abraham. See Fabr. Cod.
Apoc. V. T. p. 349.
SURA XCV.-THE FIG [XXVI.]
MECCA.-8 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
I SWEAR by the FIG and by the olive,
By Mount Sinai,
And by this inviolate soil!1
That of goodliest fabric we created man,
Then brought him down to be the lowest of the low;-
Save who believe and do the things that are right, for theirs shall be a
reward that faileth not.
Then, who after this shall make thee treat the Judgment as a lie?
What! is not God the most just of judges?
_______________________
1 In allusion to the sacredness of the territory of Mecca. This valley in
about the fourth century of our ‘ra was a kind of sacred forest of 37 miles
in circumference, and called Haram a name applied to it as early as the time
of Pliny (vi. 32). It had the privilege of asylum, but it was not lawful to
inhabit it, or to carry on commerce within its limits, and its religious
ceremonies were a bond of union to several of the Bedouin tribes of the
Hejaz. The Koreisch had monopolised most of the offices and advantages of the
Haram in the time of Muhammad. See Sprenger's Life of Mohammad, pp. 7 20.
SURA CIII.-THE AFTERNOON [XXVII.]
MECCA.-3 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
I SWEAR by the declining day!
Verily, man's lot is cast amid destruction,1
Save those who believe and do the things which be right, and enjoin truth and
enjoin stedfastness on each other.
_______________________
1 Said to have been recited in the Mosque shortly before his death by
Muhammad. See Weil, p. 328.
SURA LXXXV.-THE STARRY [XXVIII.]
MECCA.-22 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
BY the star-bespangled Heaven!1
By the promised Day!
By the witness and the witnessed!2
Cursed the masters of the trench3
Of the fuel-fed fire,
When they sat around it
Witnesses of what they inflicted on the believers!
Nor did they torment them but for their faith in God, the Mighty, the
Praiseworthy:4
His the kingdom of the Heavens and of the Earth; and God is the witness of
everything.
Verily, those who vexed the believers, men and women, and repented not, doth
the torment of Hell, and the torment of the burning, await.
But for those who shall have believed and done the things that be right, are
the Gardens beneath whose shades the rivers flow. This the immense bliss!
Verily, right terrible will be thy Lord's vengeance!
He it is who produceth all things, and causeth them to return;
And is He the Indulgent, the Loving;
Possessor of the Glorious throne;
Worker of that he willeth.
Hath not the story reached thee of the hosts
Of Pharaoh and Themoud?
Nay! the infields are all for denial:
But God surroundeth them from behind.
Yet it is a glorious Koran,
Written on the preserved Table.
_______________________
1 Lit. By the Heaven furnished with towers, where the angels keep watch;
also, the signs of the Zodiac: this is the usual interpretation. See Sura xv.
15.
2 That is, by Muhammad and by Islam; or, angels and men. See, however, v. 7.
3 Prepared by Dhu Nowas, King of Yemen, A.D. 523, for the Christians. See
Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xii. towards the end. Pocock Sp. Hist. Ar.
p. 62. And thus the comm. generally. But Geiger (p. 192) and Nöldeke (p. 77
n.) understand the passage of Dan. iii. But it should be borne in mind that
the Suras of this early period contain very little allusion to Jewish or
Christian legends.
4 Verses 8-11 wear the appearance of a late insertion, on account of their
length, which is a characteristic of the more advanced period. Observe also
the change in the rhymes.
SURA CI.-THE BLOW [XXIX.]
MECCA.-8 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
THE BLOW! what is the Blow?
Who shall teach thee what the Blow is?
The Day when men shall be like scattered moths,
And the mountains shall be like flocks of carded wool,
Then as to him whose balances are heavy-his shall be a life that shall please
him well:
And as to him whose balances are light-his dwelling-place1 shall be the pit.
And who shall teach thee what the pit (El-Hawiya) is?
A raging fire!
_______________________
1 Lit. Mother.
SURA XCIX.-THE EARTHQUAKE [XXX.]
MECCA.-8 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
WHEN the Earth with her quaking shall quake
And the Earth shall cast forth her burdens,
And man shall say, What aileth her?
On that day shall she tell out her tidings,
Because thy Lord shall have inspired her.
On that day shall men come forward in throngs to behold their works,
And whosoever shall have wrought an atom's weight of good shall behold it,
And whosoever shall have wrought an atom's weight of evil shall behold it.
SURA LXXXII.-THE CLEAVING [XXXI.]
MECCA.-19 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
WHEN the Heaven shall CLEAVE asunder,
And when the stars shall disperse,
And when the seas1 shall be commingled,
And when the graves shall be turned upside down,
Each soul shall recognise its earliest and its latest actions.
O man! what hath misled thee against thy generous Lord,
Who hath created thee and moulded thee and shaped thee aright?
In the form which pleased Him hath He fashioned thee.
Even so; but ye treat the Judgment as a lie.
Yet truly there are guardians over you-
Illustrious recorders-
Cognisant of your actions.
Surely amid delights shall the righteous dwell,
But verily the impure in Hell-fire:
They shall be burned at it on the day of doom,
And they shall not be able to hide themselves from it.
Who shall teach thee what the day of doom is?
Once more. Who shall teach thee what the day of doom is?
It is a day when one soul shall be powerless for another soul: all
sovereignty on that day shall be with God.
_______________________
1 Salt water and fresh water.
SURA LXXXI.-THE FOLDED UP [XXXII.]
MECCA.-29 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
WHEN the sun shall be FOLDED UP,1
And when the stars shall fall,
And when the mountains shall be set in motion,
And when the she-camels shall be abandoned,
And when the wild beasts shall be gathered together,2
And when the seas shall boil,
And when souls shall be paired with their bodies,
And when the female child that had been buried alive shall be asked
For what crime she was put to death,3
And when the leaves of the Book shall be unrolled,
And when the Heaven shall be stripped away,4
And when Hell shall be made to blaze,
And when Paradise shall be brought near,
Every soul shall know what it hath produced.
It needs not that I swear by the stars5 of retrograde motions
Which move swiftly and hide themselves away,
And by the night when it cometh darkening on,
And by the dawn when it brighteneth,
That this is the word of an illustrious Messenger,6
Endued with power, having influence with the Lord of the Throne,
Obeyed there by Angels, faithful to his trust,
And your compatriot is not one possessed by djinn;
For he saw him in the clear horizon:7
Nor doth he grapple with heaven's secrets,8
Nor doth he teach the doctrine of a cursed9 Satan.
Whither then are ye going?
Verily, this is no other than a warning to all creatures;
To him among you who willeth to walk in a straight path:
But will it ye shall not, unless as God willeth it,10 the Lord of the worlds.
_______________________
1 Involutus fuerit tenebris. Mar. Or, thrown down.
2 Thus Bab. Talm. Erchin, 3. "In the day to come (i.e., of judgment) all the
beasts will assemble and come, etc."
3 See Sura xvi. 61; xvii. 33.
4 Like a skin from an animal when flayed. The idea is perhaps borrowed from
the Sept. V. of Psalm civ. 2. Vulg. sicut pellem.
5 Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn.
6 Gabriel; of the meaning of whose name the next verse is probably a
paraphrase.
7 Sura 1iii. 7.
8 Like a mere Kahin, or soothsayer.
9 Lit. stoned. Sura iii. 31. This vision or hallucination is one of the few
clearly stated miracles, to which Muhammad appeals in the Koran. According to
the tradition of Ibn-Abbas in Waquidi he was preserved by it from committing
suicide by throwing himself down from Mount Hira, and that after it, God
cheered him and strengthened his heart, and one revelation speedily followed
another.
10 Comp. the doctrine of predestination in Sura 1xxvi. v. 25 to end.
SURA LXXXIV.-THE SPLITTING ASUNDER [XXXIII.]
MECCA.-25 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
WHEN the Heaven shall have SPLIT ASUNDER
And duteously obeyed its Lord;1
And when Earth shall have been stretched out as a plain,
And shall have cast forth what was in her and become empty,
And duteously obeyed its Lord;
Then verily, O man, who desirest to reach thy Lord, shalt thou meet him.
And he into whose right hand his Book shall be given,
Shall be reckoned with in an easy reckoning,
And shall turn, rejoicing, to his kindred.
But he whose Book shall be given him behind his back2
Shall invoke destruction:
But in the fire shall he burn,
For that he lived joyously among his kindred,
Without a thought that he should return to God.
Yea, but his Lord beheld him.
It needs not therefore that I swear by the sunset redness,
And by the night and its gatherings,
And by the moon when at her full,
That from state to state shall ye be surely carried onward.3
What then hath come to them that they believe not?
And that when the Koran is recited to them they adore not?
Yea, the unbelievers treat it as a lie.
But God knoweth their secret hatreds:
Let their only tidings4 be those of painful punishment;
Save to those who believe and do the things that be right.
An unfailing recompense shall be theirs.
_______________________
1 Lit. and obeyed its Lord, and shall be worthy, or capable, i.e., of
obedience.
2 That is, into his left hand. The Muhammadans believe that the right hand of
the damned will be chained to the neck; the left chained behind the back.
3 From Life to Death, from the Grave to Resurrection, thence to Paradise.
4 The expression is ironical. See Freyt. on the word. Lit. tell them glad
tidings.
SURA C.-THE CHARGERS [XXXIV.]
Mecca.-11 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
By the snorting CHARGERS!
And those that dash off sparks of fire!
And those that scour to the attack at morn!
And stir therein the dust aloft;
And cleave therein their midway through a host!
Truly, Man is to his Lord ungrateful.
And of this he is himself a witness;
And truly, he is vehement in the love of this world's good.
Ah! knoweth he not, that when that which is in the graves shall be laid bare,
And that which is in men's breasts shall be brought forth,
Verily their Lord shall on that day be informed concerning them?
SURA LXXIX.1-THOSE WHO DRAG FORTH [XXXV.]
MECCA.-46 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
By those angels who DRAG FORTH souls with violence,
And by those who with joyous release release them;
By those who swim swimmingly along;
By those who are foremost with foremost speed;2
By those who conduct the affairs of the universe!
One day, the disturbing trumpet-blast shall disturb it,
Which the second blast shall follow:
Men's hearts on that day shall quake:-
Their looks be downcast.
The infidels will say, "Shall we indeed be restored as at first?
What! when we have become rotten bones?"
"This then," say they, "will be a return to loss."
Verily, it will be but a single blast,
And lo! they are on the surface of the earth.
Hath the story of Moses reached thee?
When his Lord called to him in Towa's holy vale:
Go to Pharaoh, for he hath burst all bounds:
And say, "Wouldest thou become just?
Then I will guide thee to thy Lord that thou mayest fear him."
And he showed him a great miracle,-
But he treated him as an impostor, and rebelled;
Then turned he his back all hastily,
And gathered an assembly and proclaimed,
And said, "I am your Lord supreme."
So God visited on him the punishment of this life and of the other.
Verily, herein is a lesson for him who hath the fear of God.
Are ye the harder to create, or the heaven which he hath built?
He reared its height and fashioned it,
And gave darkness to its night, and brought out its light,
And afterwards stretched forth the earth,-
He brought forth from it its waters and its pastures;
And set the mountains firm
For you and your cattle to enjoy.
But when the grand overthrow shall come,
The day when a man shall reflect on the pains that he hath taken,
And Hell shall be in full view of all who are looking on;
Then, as for him who hath transgressed
And hath chosen this present life,
Verily, Hell-that shall be his dwelling-place:
But as to him who shall have feared the majesty of his Lord, and shall have
refrained his soul from lust,
Verily, Paradise-that shall be his dwelling-place.
They will ask thee of "the Hour," when will be its fixed time?
But what knowledge hast thou of it?
Its period is known only to thy Lord;
And thou art only charged with the warning of those who fear it.
On the day when they shall see it, it shall seem to them as though they had
not tarried in the tomb, longer than its evening or its morn.
_______________________
1 This Sura obviously consists of three portions, verses 1-14, 15-26, 27-46,
of which the third is the latest in point of style, and the second, more
detailed than is usual in the Suras of the early period, which allude to
Jewish and other legend only in brief and vague terms. It may therefore be
considered as one of the short and early Suras.
2 Or, By those angels which precede, i.e., the souls of the pious into
Paradise. Or, are beforehand with the Satans and djinn in learning the
decrees of God.
SURA LXXVII.-THE SENT [XXXVI.]
MECCA.-50 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
By the train of THE SENT ones,1
And the swift in their swiftness;
By the scatterers who scatter,
And the distinguishers who distinguish;
And by those that give forth the word
To excuse or warn;
Verily that which ye are promised is imminent.
When the stars, therefore, shall be blotted out,
And when the heaven shall be cleft,
And when the mountains shall be scattered in dust,
And when the Apostles shall have a time assigned them;
Until what day shall that time be deferred?
To the day of severing!
And who shall teach thee what the day of severing is?
Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!
Have we not destroyed them of old?
We will next cause those of later times to follow them.2
Thus deal we with the evil doers.
Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!
Have we not created you of a sorry germ,
Which we laid up in a secure place,
Till the term decreed for birth?
Such is our power! and, how powerful are We!
Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!
Have we not made the earth to hold
The living and the dead?
And placed on it the tall firm mountains, and given you to drink of sweet
water.
Woe on that day to those who charged with imposture!
Begone to that Hell which ye called a lie:-
Begone to 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?
_______________________
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!"
_______________________
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.
_______________________
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,