those who believe and do right, and bid each other be true, and bid each other be patient.
The Chapter of the Backbiter.
(ⅭⅣ. Mecca.)
In the name of the merciful and compassionate God.
Woe to every slanderous backbiter, who collects wealth and counts it.
He thinks that his wealth can immortalize him.
Not so! he shall be hurled into El ʿHutamah !
5 And what shall make thee understand what El ʿHutamah[1] is ? — the fire of God kindled; which rises above the hearts. Verily, it is an archway over them on long-drawn columns.
The Chapter of the Elephant.
(ⅭⅤ. Mecca.)
In the name of the merciful and compassionate God.
Hast thou not seen what thy Lord did with the fellows of the elephant[2]?
Did He not make their stratagem lead them astray, and send down on them birds in flocks, to throw down on them stones of baked clay, 5 and make them like blades of herbage eaten down ?
- ↑ See Introduction, p. ⅼⅹⅹ.
- ↑ Abrahat el A-rram, an Abyssinian Christian, and viceroy of the king of Sanaa in Yemen in the year in which Mohammed was born, marched with a large army and some elephants upon Mecca, with the intention of destroying the Kaabah. He was defeated and his army destroyed in so sudden a manner as to have given rise to the legend embodied in the text. It is conjectured that small-pox broke out amongst his men.
