The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930)/The Mansions of the Stars

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SÛRAH LXXXV

Al-Burûj takes its name from a word in verse 1, which I have translated "mansions of the stars." The word has the meaning of towers or mansions and is applied to the signs of the Zodiac. Verses 4 to 7 are generally taken to refer to the massacre of the Christians of Najrân in Al-Yaman by a Jewish king Dhû Nawâs, an event of great historical importance since it caused the intervention of the Negus and led to the Abyssinian supremacy in the Yaman which lasted until the War of the Elephant (Sûrah CV) in the Prophet's year of birth. Professor Horowitz thinks that the words "owners of the ditch, of the fuel-fed fire" refer not to any historical event but to the condition of all persecutors in the hereafter.^[1]

An early Meccan Sûrah.

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THE MANSIONS OF THE STARS

Revealed at Mecca

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

¹ By the heaven, holding mansions of the stars,
² And by the Promised Day.
³ And by the witness and that whereunto he beareth testimony,
⁴ (Self-)destroyed were the owners of the ditch
⁵ Of the fuel-fed fire,
⁶ When they sat by it,
⁷ And were themselves the witnesses of what they did to the believers.^[2]

⁸ They had naught against them save that they believed in Allah, the Mighty, the Owner of Praise,
⁹ Him unto Whom, belongeth the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth; and Allah is of all things the Witness.
¹⁰ Lo! they who persecute believing men and believing women and repent not, theirs verily will be the doom of hell, and theirs the doom of burning.
¹¹ Lo! those who believe and do good works, theirs will be Gardens underneath which rivers flow. That is the Great Success.
¹² Lo! the punishment of thy Lord is stern.
¹³ Lo! He it is Who produceth, then reproduced,
¹⁴ And He is the Forgiving, the Loving,
¹⁵ Lord of the Throne of Glory,
¹⁶ Doer of what He will.
¹⁷ Hath there come unto thee the story of the hosts
¹⁸ Of Pharaoh and (the tribe of) Thamûd?
¹⁹ Nay, but those who disbelieve live in denial
²⁰ And Allah, all unseen, surroundeth them.
²¹ Nay, but it is a glorious Qur'ân.
²² On a guarded tablet.

1. See "Islamic Culture" (Hyderabad, Deccan), April 1929.
2. Or it might be: "(Self-)destroyed were the owners of the trench of fuel-fed fire (i.e. hell) when they took their ease on earth and were themselves the witnesses," etc.