the infidels, and those who give the lie to our signs, these shall be the inmates of Hell.
Know ye that this world's life is only a sport, and pastime, and show, and a cause of vainglory among you! And the multiplying of riches and children is like the plants which spring up after rain—Their growth rejoiceth the husbandman; then they wither away, and thou seest them all yellow; then they become stubble. And in the next life is a severe chastisement,
20Or else pardon from God and His satisfaction: and this world's life is but a cheating fruition.[1]
Vie in hasting after pardon from your Lord, and Paradise whose outspread is as the outspread of the Heaven and of the Earth: Prepared is it for those who believe in God and His apostles: Such is the bounty of God: to whom He will He giveth it: and of immense bounty is God!
No mischance chanceth either on earth or in your own persons, but ere we created them, it was in the Book;[2]—for easy is this to God—
Lest ye distress yourselves if good things escape you, and be over joyous for what falleth to your share. God loveth not the presumptuous, the boaster,
Who are covetous themselves and incite others to covetousness. But whoso turneth away from almsgiving—Ah! God is the Rich, the Praiseworthy.
We have sent our apostles with the clear tokens, and we have caused the Book and the balance[3] to descend with them, that men might observe fairness. And we have sent down IRON. Dire evil[4] resideth in it, as well as advantage, to mankind! God would know who will assist Him and his apostle in secret. Verily, God is Powerful, Strong.
And of old sent we Noah and Abraham, and on their seed conferred the gift of prophecy, and the Book; and some of them we guided aright; but many were evil doers.
Then we caused our apostles to follow in their footsteps; and we caused Jesus the son of Mary to follow them; and we gave him the Evangel,[5] and we put into the hearts of those
- ↑ Supellex deceptionis. Mar.
- ↑ Of our eternal decrees.
- ↑ Brought by Gabriel to Noah, who imparted its use to his posterity, say the commentators. But the expression seems rather to be figurative. Comp. Sura ⅼⅴ. 6, p. 74.
- ↑ Or, mighty warlike strength, but the antithesis requires the rendering given in the text. Comp. Gen. iv. 22, and Michna Tr. Aboth, 5, 9.
- ↑ We are not to understand by the word Evangel the actual volume of the New Testament, or any one of its component parts, but rather the revelation made to Jesus by God himself, which Muhammad may have imagined to have been committed to writing subsequently, in the same way as his own Koran.
