[LXXVIII.]
SURA XL.—THE BELIEVER
Mecca.—85 Verses.
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Ha. Mim. The Revelation (sending down) of the Book is from God the Almighty, the All-knowing,[1]
Forgiver of sin, and receiver of penitence, vehement in chastisement,
Long-suffering! There is no God but He: to Him shall be the final gathering.
None but infidels gainsay the signs of God: but let not their prosperity in the land deceive thee.
The people of Noah, and the confederates after them, have brought the charge of imposture before these Meccans: each nation schemed against their apostle to lay violent hold on him, and disputed with vain words to refute the truth. Therefore did I lay violent hold on them; and how great was my chastisement!
Thus is it that thy Lord's sentence, that inmates shall they be of the fire, was accomplished upon the infidels.
They who bear the throne[2] and they who encircle it, celebrate the praise of their Lord and believe in Him, and implore forgiveness for the believers:—“O our Lord! thou embracest all things in mercy and knowledge; forgive, therefore, those who turn to thee and follow thy path; keep them from the pains of hell:
O our Lord! and bring them into the Gardens of Eden which thou hast promised to them, and to the righteous ones of their fathers and their wives and their children; for thou art the All-mighty, the All-wise:
And keep them from evil: for on him hast thou mercy whom on that day thou shalt keep from evil;” and this will be the great felicity.
10But to the infidels shall a voice cry, “Surely the hatred of
- ↑ See Sura lxviii. 1, p. 32.
- ↑ The Cherubic beings of Scripture are said to be above the throne of God (Is. vi. 1), beneath it (Ezek. ⅹ.); and the mystical beasts in the Revelations are said to be in the midst of the throne and round about it.
