Tafsir Al Jalalayn - English — Al-Ahqaf 46:1 – Al-Qalam 68:52

Hā mīm: God knows best what He means by these [letters].

The revelation of the Book, the Qur’ān (tanzīlu’l-kitābi, the subject) is from God (mina’Llāhi, the predicate thereof), the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Wise, in His actions.

We have not created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them except, as a creation, in truth, so that it may be an indication of Our power and Our Oneness, and for an appointed term, until [the point of] their annihilation on the Day of Resurrection. Yet those who disbelieve are disregardful of what they are warned, [of what] they are threatened with in the way of [impending] chastisement.

Say: ‘Have you considered, [say] Inform me [about], what you invoke, [what] you worship, besides God?, namely, the idols (min dūni’Llāhi, constitutes the first object [of the verb]). Show me — inform me — (arūnī, [repeated] for emphasis), what they have created (mādhā khalaqū, the second object) of the earth (mina’l-ardi, the explication of mā, ‘what [part]’). Or do they have any share, any partnership, in, the creation of, the heavens?, with God? (am, ‘or’, has the significance of the [rhetorical interrogative] hamza of denial). Bring me a scripture, [that has been] revealed, before this, Qur’ān, or some vestige, some remnant, of knowledge, transmitted from the ancients confirming the soundness of your claim that your worship of the idols brings you closer to God, if you are truthful’, in your claim.

And who is (man here is interrogative but meant [rhetorically] as a negation: in other words, ‘no one is’) further astray than him who invokes, [him who] worships, besides God, that is to say, other than Him, such as would not respond to him [even] until the Day of Resurrection — these are the idols, who never answer those who worship them in anything that they ask for — and who are heedless of their supplication?, their worship, because they are inanimates that possess no [faculty of] comprehension.

And when mankind are gathered, they, the idols, will be enemies to them, to those who had worshipped them, and they will deny, they will disavow, their worship, the worship of those who had worshipped them.

And when Our signs, the Qur’ān, are recited to them, namely, [to] the people of Mecca, being clear signs, manifest [signs] (bayyinātin is a circumstantial qualifier), those who disbelieve, from among them, say of the truth, that is, the Qur’ān, when it comes to them, ‘This is plain sorcery!’, clear and evident [sorcery].

Or (am has the significance of bal, ‘nay, but …’ and the [rhetorical interrogative] hamza of denial) do they say, ‘He has invented it?’, that is, the Qur’ān. Say: ‘If I have invented it, hypothetically [speaking], still you would have no power to avail me against God, that is to say, against His chastisement, in any way, in other words, you would not be able to ward it off from me if God chooses to chastise me. He knows best what you delve into [of gossip] concerning it, what you say about the Qur’ān. He, exalted be He, suffices as a witness between me and you. And He is the Forgiving, to the one who repents, the Merciful’, to him, and so He does not hasten to punish you.

Say: ‘I am not a novelty, unprecedented, among the messengers, that is to say, [I am not] the first to be sent [by God as His Messenger]. Already many of them have come before me, so how can you deny me? Nor do I know what will be done with me or with you, in this world: will I be made to leave my [native] land, or will I be slain as was done with [some] prophets before me, or will you stone me to death, or will the earth be made to swallow you as [it did] deniers before you? I only follow what is revealed to me, that is, the Qur’ān, and I do not invent anything myself. And I am only a plain warner’, one whose warning is plain.

Say: ‘Have you considered?, [say:] inform me, what will be your predicament, if it, the Qur’ān, is from God and you disbelieve in it (wa-kafartum bihi, the sentence is a circumstantial qualifier), and a witness from the Children of Israel has [already] testified, this was ‘Abd Allāh b. Salām, to the like of it, that is to say, to it [the Qur’ān], that it is from God, and he, the witness, has believed [in it], while you act with arrogance …’, you are disdainful of faith (the response to the conditional [‘if …’] is given [by implication] in what has been supplemented to it, in other words: ‘Would you not then be [considered] wrongdoers?’; this [understanding of the response] is indicated by [what follows]). Truly God does not guide wrongdoing folk’.

And those who disbelieve say of those who believe, that is, [they say] with regards to them: ‘Had it, faith, been [anything] good, they would not have attained it before us’. And since they, the ones [now] speaking, will not be guided by it, that is, [by] the Qur’ān, they say, ‘This, that is, the Qur’ān, is an ancient lie!’

Yet before it, that is, [before] the Qur’ān, [there was] the Book of Moses, that is, the Torah, as a guidepost and a mercy, for those who believed in it (imāman wa-rahmatan are two circumstantial qualifiers) and this, Qur’ān, is a Book that confirms, scriptures before it, in the Arabic tongue (lisānan ‘arabiyyan is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject of musaddiqun, ‘that confirms’) to warn those who do wrong, the idolaters of Mecca, and, it is, good tidings for the virtuous, the believers.

Assuredly those who say, ‘Our Lord is God’ and then remain upright, in [their adherence to] obedience, no fear will befall them, nor will they grieve.

Those will be the inhabitants of Paradise, abiding therein (khālidīna fīhā is a circumstantial qualifier) as a reward (jazā’an is in the accusative as a verbal noun, because of the implied verbal action, that is to say, yujzawna, ‘they will be rewarded’) for what they used to do.

And We have enjoined man to be kind (husnan: a variant reading has ihsānan), that is to say, We have commanded him to act kindly towards both of them (thus ihsānan is in the accusative as a verbal noun, because of the implied verbal action; the same applies to husnan) to his parents. His mother carries him in travail, and gives birth to him in travail, that is to say, with suffering; and his gestation and his weaning, from suckling, take thirty months, six months being the minimum period for gestation, the remainder being the maximum period of suckling; it is also said that, regardless of whether she bore him for six or nine months, she should suckle him for the remainder. So that (hattā is a [particle of] purpose for an implied sentence, that is to say, wa-‘āsha hattā, ‘and he lived on so that …’) when he is mature, namely, at his prime in terms of his strength, intellect and reasoning, the minimum [age] for which is thirty or thirty three years, and reaches forty years, that is, exactly [forty years], which is the maximum for [attaining] maturity, he says, ‘My Lord!, [this] to the end [of this verse] was revealed regarding Abū Bakr al-Siddīq, when he had reached forty years of age, two years after the [beginning of the] Prophet’s Mission (s). He [Abū Bakr] believed in him, whereafter his parents believed [in the Prophet], followed by his son ‘Abd al-Rahmān, then ‘Abd al-Rahmān’s son Abū ‘Atīq [Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Rahmān]. Inspire me to give thanks for Your favour with which You have favoured me and my parents, namely, [the grace of] affirming [God’s] Oneness, and that I may act righteously in a way that will please You, thus he [Abū Bakr] emancipated nine believers who had been enduring torture [at the hands of the idolaters] for [their belief in] God, and invest my seed with righteousness, all of them were believers. Indeed I repent to You and I am truly of those who submit [to You]’.

Those, that is, those who say such words, Abū Bakr and others, are they from whom We accept the best of what they do, and overlook their misdeeds, [as they stand] among the inhabitants of Paradise (fī ashābi’ll-jannati, a circumstantial qualifier, in other words, ‘being among them’) — [this is] the true promise which they were promised, by His words, God has promised the believers, both men and women, Gardens … [Q. 9:72].

As for him who says to his parents (li-wālidayhi: a variant reading has li-wālidihi, ‘his parent’, denoting the generic noun): ‘Fie (read uffin or uffan, as a verbal noun, meaning: ‘[something] putrid and disgusting’) on you both: I am exasperated at both of you. Do you threaten me (a-ta‘idāninī: a variant reading has a-ta‘idānnī) that I shall be raised, from the grave, when already generations, communities, have passed away before me?’, and they have not been raised from their graves. And they call on God for succour, that he [their child] repent, saying [to him]: if you do not repent, ‘Woe to you (waylaka, that is to say, halākaka, ‘you are ruined!’). Believe!, in resurrection. Surely God’s promise is true’. But he says, ‘This, belief in resurrection, is nothing but the fables of the ancients’, lies of theirs.

Such are the ones against whom the Word, of chastisement, is due, is necessary, concerning communities of jinn and humans that have passed away before them. Truly they are losers.

And for each one, of both categories, believer and disbeliever, there will be degrees [of status] , thus the degrees of the believers in Paradise are high, while the degrees of disbelievers in the Fire are despicable, according to what they have done, that is to say, [according to what] believers [have done] in the way of acts of obedience, and disbelievers, in the way of acts of disobedience, and that He may recompense them fully, namely, God (li-yuwaffiyahum: a variant reading has li-nuwaffiyahum, ‘that We may recompense them fully’) for their deeds, that is, [pay them] their deserts, and they will not be wronged, [not even] in a single thing that may be diminished for believers or increased for disbelievers.

And on the day when those who disbelieve are exposed to the Fire, by its being revealed for them, it will be said to them: ‘You squandered (read with one hamza, adhhabtum, or with two hamzas [as an interrogative], a-adhhabtum, ‘have you sqaundered …?’; or with one hamza, adhhabtum, or with an initial long ‘a’, ādhhabtum, with both of these [pronounced fully] or without pronouncing the second [hamza]) your good things during your life of the world, by preoccupying yourselves with sensual delights, and enjoyed them. So today you will be requited with the chastisement of humiliation in return for acting arrogantly in the earth without right and in return for that regarding which you used to act immorally’, and [for] the torture you used to inflict [upon others] therein.

And mention the brother of ‘Ād, namely, Hūd, peace be upon him, when (idh … [from here] to the end [of the verse] constitutes an inclusive substitution) he warned his people, he threatened them, at Ahqāf, [‘the Sand dunes’ is the name of] a valley in Yemen, where their dwellings were located — and already warners, messengers, had passed away before him and after him, that is to say, before Hūd [came to them] and after him, to their peoples — saying, ‘Do not worship anyone but God (the statement [beginning with] wa-qad khalat, ‘and already [warners] had passed away’, is a parenthetical one). Truly I fear for you — should you worship other than God — the chastisement of a dreadful day’.

They said, ‘Have you come to divert us from our gods?, to turn us away from worship of them. Then bring us what you threaten us with, of chastisement for worshipping them, if you are of the truthful’, in [saying] that it will befall us.

He, Hūd, said, ‘The knowledge is with God only, He is the One Who knows when chastisement will befall you, and I am [merely] conveying to you what I have been sent with, to you. But I see that you are an ignorant lot’, given your hastening on of the chastisement.

Then, when they saw it, that is, [when they saw] what chastisement [really] was, as a sudden cloud, a cloud that appeared [out of nowhere] on the horizon, heading towards their valleys, they said, ‘This is a cloud that will bring us rain!’. God, exalted be He, says: Nay, but it is what you sought to hasten, of the chastisement — a hurricane (rīhun substitutes for mā, ‘what’) containing a painful chastisement,

destroying, ruining, everything, it passes through, by the command of its Lord, by His will, that is to say, [destroying] everything that He wants to destroy with it. And so it destroyed their men, women, children and properties by flinging them up into the air high above the ground and tearing them to pieces. Only Hūd and those who believed with him remained [unscathed]. So they became such that nothing could be seen except their dwellings. Thus, in the way that We requited them, do We requite guilty folk, besides them.

And verily We had empowered them in ways in which We have not (in is either for negation or extra) empowered you, O people of Mecca, in the way of strength and means, and We had vested them with ears and eyes and hearts. But their ears and their eyes and their hearts did not avail them in any way (min shay’in: min is extra) since (idh, is operated by aghnā, ‘avail’, and imbued with the sense of [a particle introducing a] reason) they used to deny the signs of God, His clear proofs, and they were besieged by, there befell them, what they used to deride, of chastisement.

And We certainly destroyed the towns [that were] around you, that is, [We destroyed] their inhabitants, the likes of Thamūd, ‘Ād and the people of Lot, and We dispensed the signs, We repeated the clear proofs, so that perhaps they might return.

So why did they not help them, by averting from them the chastisement, those whom they had chosen besides God, that is to say, other than Him, as [a means of] nearness, through whom they may secure nearness to God, to be gods?, alongside Him, and these are the idols (the first object of ittakhadhū, ‘they had chosen’, is the omitted pronoun referred to by the relative clause [alladhīna, ‘those who …’], and it is hum, ‘they’; qurbānan, ‘nearness’, is the second [object], with ālihatan, ‘gods’, as its substitution). Nay, but they forsook them, when the chastisement came down [on them], and that, that is to say, [that] choosing of theirs of idols as gods as a means of nearness [to God], was their lie and what they used to invent — the lies they used to speak (mā, ‘what’, either relates to the verbal action [‘their lying’], or it indicates a relative clause with the referential pronoun omitted, this being fīhi, ‘about’).

And, mention, when We sent a company of jinn your way — the jinn of Nasībīn in Yemen, or the jinn of Nineveh, who were seven or nine, [and this was] while the Prophet (s) was leading the dawn prayer with some of his Companions at Batn Nakhla, as reported by the two Shaykhs [al-Bukhārī and Muslim] — to listen to the Qur’ān and, when they were in its presence, they said, that is, they said to one another: ‘Listen carefully!’, concentrate in order to hear it [carefully]. Then, when it was finished, [when] he was finished reciting it, they went back to their people to warn [them], to threaten their people with the chastisement [from God] if they do not believe — they had been Jews, but then become Muslims.

They said, ‘O our people! Indeed we have heard a Book, namely, the Qur’ān, which has been revealed after Moses, confirming what was before it, what preceded it, such as the Torah. It guides to the truth, submission [to God] (islām), and to a straight way, that is, the way thereto [to Islam].

O our people! Respond to God’s summoner, Muhammad (s), by embracing faith, and believe in him, and He, God, will forgive you some of your sins, because some of these [sins] are wrongs [done to others] and which [therefore] can only be forgiven after those wronged are reconciled — and shelter you from a painful chastisement.

And whoever does not respond to God’s summoner cannot thwart God on earth, that is to say, he will not be able to thwart God by escaping from Him and eluding Him, and he, the one who does not respond, will not have, besides Him, that is, [besides] God, any protectors, any helpers to ward off the chastisement from him — those, who do not respond, are in manifest error’, plain and evident [error].

Have they not seen, [have they not] realised, that is, the deniers of resurrection, that God, Who created the heavens and the earth and [Who] was not wearied by their creation, [Who] did not fail therein, is able to give life to the dead? (bi-qādirin is the predicate of anna, ‘that’, the bi- having been added to it because the statement has the same force as [the construction]: a-laysa’Llāhu bi-qādirin, ‘Is God not able …?’). Yes, indeed, He is able to give life to the dead. Indeed He has is able to do all things.

And on the day when those who disbelieve are exposed to the Fire, when they are being chastised in it, it will be said to them: ‘Is not this, chastisement, the truth?’ They will say, ‘Yes, by our Lord!’ He will say, ‘Then taste the chastisement for what you used to disbelieve [in]’.

So endure [with patience], the harm done [to you] by your people, just as the resolute, those of constancy and [power of] endurance during hardships, from among the messengers endured [with patience], before you, so that you may be one of resolve [like them] (min [of mina’l-rusuli] is explicative, as all of them were men of resolve; but some say that this [particle min] is [actually] meant to be partitive, since excluded from their number are: Adam, on the basis of God’s saying, exalted be He: And We did not find in him any constancy [Q. 20:115]; and Jonah, on the basis of His words: And do not be like the One of the fish [Q. 68:48]). And do not seek to hasten [it] for them, for your people, the sending down of the chastisement on them. Some say that he [the Prophet] seemed [by this stage] to have become exasperated because of them and desired that chastisement be sent down on them, which is why he was enjoined to [exercise] patience and to refrain from hastening the chastisement [for them] — for it would befall them [eventually] without doubt. It shall seem for them, on the day when they see what they are promised, of chastisement in the Hereafter, given its long duration, as though they had tarried, in this world, by their reckoning, only an hour of a day. This Qur’ān is, a communication, a proclamation from God to you. So shall any be destroyed, that is to say, none [shall be destroyed] upon seeing the chastisement, but the immoral folk?, that is to say, the disbelieving [folk].

Those who disbelieve, from among the people of Mecca, and bar, others, from the way of God, that is to say, [from] faith, He will leave their works to waste, such as giving food [to the poor] or being kind to kin, and so they will find no reward for these [works of theirs] in the Hereafter; [but] they are requited for them in this world [purely] out of His bounty, exalted be He.

But those who believe, namely, the Helpers (al-Ansār) and others [like them], and perform righteous deeds and believe in what has been revealed to Muhammad, namely, the Qur’ān — and it is the truth from their Lord — He will absolve them of, He will forgive them, their misdeeds and rightly dispose their mind, their state, so that they do not disobey Him.

That, rendering void of their works and the absolution of evil deeds, is because those who disbelieve follow falsehood, Satan, and because those who believe follow the truth, the Qur’ān, from their Lord. Thus, in the same manner of clarification, does God strike for mankind similitudes of themselves, [that is how] He clarifies for them their states, in other words, the disbeliever has his work rendered void while the believer is forgiven.

So when you encounter [in battle] those who disbelieve, then [attack them with] a striking of the necks (fa-darba’l-riqābi is a verbal noun in place of the [full] verbal construction, that is to say, fa’dribū riqābahum, ‘then strike their necks’), in other words, slay them — reference is made to the ‘striking of the necks’ because the predominant cause of being slayed is to be struck in the neck. Then, when you have made thoroughly decimated them, bind, spare them, take them captive and bind firmly, the bonds (al-wathāq is what is used to bind [yūthaqu] a captive). Thereafter either [set them free] by grace (mannan is a verbal noun in place of the [full] verbal construction), that is to say, either show them grace by setting them free unconditionally; or by ransom, ransoming them with payment or with Muslim captives, until the war, that is to say, its participants, lay down its burdens, its heavy loads of weaponry and other things, so that either the disbelievers surrender or enter into a treaty. This [last clause] constitutes the ‘purpose’ of [enjoining the Muslims to] slaying and taking captive. So [shall it be] (dhālika is the predicate of an implied subject, [such as] al-amr, ‘the ordinance’, in other words, ‘the ordinance [of God] regarding them is as mentioned’). And had God willed, He could have [Himself] taken vengeance on them, without any fighting, but, He has commanded you to [do] it, that He may test some of you by means of others, from among them, by way of battle, so that the slain among you will end up in Paradise, while those [slain] among them [will end up] in the Fire. And those who are slain (qutilū: a variant reading has qātalū, ‘those who fight’) — this verse was revealed on the day of [the battle of] Uhud, after the dead and the wounded had become numerous among the Muslims — in the way of God, He will not let their works go to waste, He will [not] render [them] void.

He will guide them, in this world and in the Hereafter to what benefits them, and rightly dispose their minds, their condition in both, with that [guidance and disposal] in this world being for those who were not slain, but who have been included in [the statement] ‘and those who were slain’ (qutilū) because of [the] predominance therein [of those who were slain].

And He will admit them into Paradise, which He has made known, [which] He has pointed out, to them, so that they are guided to their dwellings in it, and to their spouses and servants without asking to be shown the way.

O you who believe! If you help God, that is to say, His religion and His Messenger, He will help you, against your enemy, and make your foothold firm, He will make you stand firm [while you fight] on the battleground.

And as for those who disbelieve, from among the people of Mecca (wa’lladhīna kafarū is the subject, the predicate of which is [an implicit] ta‘isū, ‘they shall be wretched’, as indicated [by what follows]) wretchedness shall be their lot, that is, destruction and defeat from God. And He will make their works go to waste (wa-adalla a‘mālahum is a supplement to [the implied] ta‘isū, ‘they shall be wretched’).

That, wretchedness and wasting [of their works], is because they are averse to what God has revealed, of the Qur’ān with all that it includes of religious obligations (takālīf), so He has made their works fail.

Have they not travelled in the land to see the nature of the consequence for those who were before them? God destroyed them — He destroyed them, their children and their possessions; and [a fate] the like thereof will be for the disbelievers, that is to say, the like of the fate of those before them.

That, granting of victory to the believers and the vanquishing of the disbelievers, is because God is Patron, Ally and Helper, of those who believe and because the disbelievers have no patron.

God will surely admit those who believe and perform righteous deeds into gardens underneath which rivers flow. As for those who disbelieve, they take their enjoyment, in this world, and eat as the cattle eat, that is to say, they are only concerned with [filling] their bellies and [satisfying] their private parts, without giving any thought to the Hereafter; and the Fire will be their habitation, their home, their station and their [final] destination.

And how many (ka-ayyin means kam) a town, by which is meant the inhabitants thereof, mightier in power than your town, Mecca, that is to say, its inhabitants, which expelled you (akhrajatka [is feminine despite the plural sense of inhabitants meant is because it] takes into account the [feminine] form of qarya, ‘town’), have We destroyed (ahlaknāhum takes into account the former [plural] import of qarya, ‘town’), and they had none to help them, against Our destruction [of them].

Is he who follows a clear sign, a definitive argument and proof, from his Lord, and these are the believers, like those whose evil deeds have been adorned for them, so that they see them as fair [deeds], and these are the disbelievers of Mecca, and who follow their desires?, by worshipping graven images. In other words, there is no similarity between the two.

A similitude, a description, of the Garden promised to the God-fearing: [the Garden] that is shared equally by all those who enter it (this first clause is the subject, of which the predicate [follows:]) therein are rivers of unstaling water (read āsin or asin, similar [in form] to dārib, ‘striker’, and hadhir, ‘cautious’), that is to say, one that does not change, in contrast to the water of this world, which may change due to some factor; and rivers of milk unchanging in flavour, in contrast to the milk of this world, on account of its issuing from udders, and rivers of wine delicious to the drinkers, in contrast to the wine of this world, which is distasteful to drink; and [also] rivers of purified honey, in contrast to the honey of this world, which when it issues out of the bellies of bees becomes mixed with wax and other elements; and there will be for them therein, varieties [of], every fruit and forgiveness from their Lord, for He is pleased with them, in addition to His beneficence towards them in the way mentioned, in contrast to one who is a master of servants in this world, who while being kind to them may at the same time be wrathful with them. [Is such a one] like him who abides in the Fire? (ka-man huwa khālidun fī’l-nāri, the predicate of an implied subject, which is a-man huwa fī hādha’l-na‘īm, ‘Is one who is amidst such bliss [as him who abides in the Fire]?’). And they will be given to drink boiling water which rips apart their bowels, that is, their entrails, so that these will be excreted from their rears. (Am‘ā’, ‘bowels’, is the plural of mi‘an, its alif being derived from the yā’ of their saying mi‘yān [as an alternative singular to mi‘an]).

And there are some among them, namely, the disbelievers, who listen to you, during the Friday sermon — and these are the hypocrites; until, when they go forth from you, they say to those who have been given knowledge, that is to say, to the knowledgeable ones among the Companions [of the Prophet], such as [‘Abd Allāh] Ibn Mas‘ūd and [‘Abd Allāh] Ibn ‘Abbās, in derision and mockery: ‘What was he saying just now?’ (read ānifan or anifan, meaning al-sā‘a, ‘just now’). In other words, [they mean to say] ‘we will not go back to [listen to] him again’. Those are the ones on whose hearts God has set a seal, of disbelief, and who follow their own desires, in [acting with] hypocrisy.

But those who are [rightly] guided, namely, the believers, He, God, enhances their guidance and invests them with fear [of Him], He inspires them to [do] that by which they can be wary of [ending up in] the Fire.

Do they, then, await, they do not await, namely, the disbelievers of Mecca, anything except that the Hour should come upon them (an ta’tiyahum is an inclusive substitution for al-sā‘ata, ‘the Hour’; in other words, it cannot be other than that it will come upon them […]) suddenly? For already its portents, the signs thereof, have come, among which are the sending of the Prophet (s), the splitting of the Moon [Q. 54:1] and the Smoke [Q. 44:10]. So, when it, the Hour, has come upon them, for what [benefit] will their reminder be?, their remembering; in other words, it will be of no benefit to them.

Know, then, that there is no god except God, that is to say, adhere, O Muhammad (s), to knowledge of this [fact] that will benefit you at the Resurrection, and ask forgiveness for your sin — this was said to him, despite his infallibility (‘isma), so that his community might emulate him [in this respect]. Indeed he did do this. The Prophet (s) said, ‘Verily I do ask God for forgiveness a hundred times every day’ — and for the believing men and believing women — herein is an honouring for them, by having their Prophet enjoined to ask forgiveness for them. And God knows your going to and fro, your bustle during the day in pursuit of your business, and your place of rest, when you retire to where you sleep at night. In other words, He has knowledge of all your states, nothing of which can be hidden from Him, so be mindful of Him — the address [in this verse] is meant for believers as well as others.

And those who believe say, seeking to take part in the struggle: ‘Why has a sūra not been revealed?’, [one] in which there is mention of the [command to participate in the] struggle. But when a definitive sūra is revealed, one in which nothing is abrogated (naskh), and fighting, that is to say, requirement for it, is mentioned in it, you see those in whose hearts is a sickness, that is, doubt — and they are the hypocrites — looking at you with the look of someone fainting at [the point of] death, because of [their] fear of it and [their] aversion to it; in other words, they fear fighting and are averse to it. Yet more fitting for them (fa-awlā lahum is a subject, the predicate of which [is the following, tā‘atun wa-qawlun ma‘rūfun])

would be [to offer] obedience and honourable words, that is, [words] that are kind to you. Then, when the matter has been resolved upon, that is to say, [when] fighting has been prescribed, if they are loyal to God, in faith and obedience, it will be better for them (the sentence beginning with law, ‘if’, constitutes the response to idhā, ‘when’).

May it not be [the case] with you, (read ‘asītum or ‘asaytum; there is a shift here from the third person to the second person address), that if you were to turn away, [if] you were to shun faith, you would then cause corruption in the land and sever your kinship ties?, in other words, [that] you would then return to the ways of pagandom such as belligerence and fighting.

Those, that is, the agents of corruption, are the ones whom God has cursed, so made them deaf, to hearing the truth, and blinded their eyes, to the path of guidance.

Do they not contemplate the Qur’ān?, and so recognise the truth. Or (am here is like bal, ‘nay, but’) is it that there are locks on, their, hearts?, so they are unable to comprehend it.

Truly those who have turned, by way of hypocrisy, their backs after the guidance has become clear to them, Satan has seduced, he has adorned [disbelief for], them and has given them [false] hopes (read wa-umliya lahum, ‘[false] hopes have been given to them’, or wa-amlā lahum, where the one who gives the [false] hopes is Satan, [but only] by God’s will, exalted be He, for he [Satan] is the one who leads them astray).

That, leading of them astray, is because they said to those who were averse to what God revealed, namely, to the idolaters: ‘We will obey you in some matters’, that is to say, by cooperating to maintain enmity against the Prophet (s) and preventing people from participating in the struggle alongside him: they had said as much secretly, but God, exalted be He, exposed it; and God knows their secrets (read asrārahum, as the plural of sirr, ‘a secret’, or isrārahum, ‘their keeping [of things] secret’, as the verbal noun).

Then how will it be, their predicament, when the angels take them away, beating (yadribūna is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the angels) their faces and their backs?, with hooked iron rods.

That, taking of them away in the state mentioned, is because they followed what angers God, and [because] they were averse to what pleases Him, that is to say, [they were averse to] doing what pleases Him. Therefore He has made their works fail.

Or did those in whose hearts is a sickness suppose that God would not expose their rancour?, [that] He would [not] bring to light their spite against the Prophet (s) and the believers.

And if We will, We could show them to you, We could have pointed them out to you (the lām is repeated in [the following, fa-la-‘araftahum]), then you would recognise them by their mark. And you will certainly recognise them (wa-la-ta‘rifannahum: the wāw is for an omitted oath, and what follows it [fī lahni’l-qawl] is its response) by [their] tone of speech, that is to say, [by] the meaning thereof when they speak in your presence, alluding [as they do] to what amounts to a scathing attack upon the Muslims; and God knows your deeds.

And We will assuredly try you, We will assuredly test you by way of [commanding you to participate in] the struggle and in other ways, until We know, with knowledge outwardly manifested, those of you who struggle [for God’s cause] and those who are steadfast, in [adhering to] the struggle and in other ways, and We will appraise, We will reveal, your record, in terms of [whether you acted with] obedience or disobedience in what concerns the struggle (all three verbs may be read with the [third person singular] yā’ or with the [first person plural] nūn).

Indeed those who disbelieve and bar from the way of God, the path of truth, and defy the Messenger, opposing him, after the guidance (this is the meaning of ‘the way of God’) has become clear to them, they will not hurt God in any way, and He will make their works fail, He will invalidate them, [good works] such as voluntary alms and the like, and so they will not find any reward for it in the Hereafter — this was revealed either regarding those [Meccan] participants at [the battle of] Badr who provided food [for the needy], or regarding [the Jewish tribes of] Qurayza and al-Nadīr.

O you who believe! Obey God and obey the Messenger, and do not render your own works void, by [engaging in] acts of disobedience, for example.

Indeed those who disbelieve and bar from the way of God, His path, namely, guidance, and then die as disbelievers, God will never forgive them — this was revealed regarding the men of the Well (al-qalīb).

So do not falter, [do not] be weak, and [do not] call for peace (read salm or silm), that is to say, a truce with the disbelievers should you encounter them, when you have the upper hand (al-a‘lawna: the third letter of the triliteral root, wāw, has been omitted), [when you are] the victors, the vanquishers, and God is with you, helping and assisting, and He will not stint you, diminish you, in [the reward for] your works, that is to say, of the reward for them.

The life of this world, that is to say, preoccupation [solely] with it, is merely play and diversion; but if you believe and are wary, of God, [both of] which pertain to [the goal of] the Hereafter, He will give you your rewards, and will not ask you your wealth [in return], all of it, rather, only the alms that are required from it.

If He were to ask you for it, and press you, demand it persistently, you would be niggardly, and this, niggardliness, would expose your rancour, towards the religion of Islam.

Lo! there you are, O, those who are being called to expend in the way of God, that which has been prescribed for you; yet among you there are those who are niggardly; and whoever is niggardly is niggardly only to his own soul (one may say bakhila ‘alayhi or [bakhila] ‘anhu [to mean, ‘he was niggardly to someone’]). For God is the Independent One, [without need] of your expending; while you are the needy, of Him. And if you turn away, from obedience to Him, He will replace you with another people, that is to say, He will bring them in your place, and they will not be the likes of you, in turning away from obedience to Him, but [they will be] obedient to Him, Mighty and Majestic [is He].

Verily We have given you, We have ordained [for you] the conquest (fath) of Mecca, and other places in the future by force, as a result of your struggle, a clear victory, [one that is] plain and manifest;

that God may forgive you, by virtue of your struggle, what is past of your sin and what is to come, of it, so that your community might then desire to struggle [like you] — this [verse] also constitutes a justification of the [concept of the] infallibility (‘isma) of prophets, peace be upon them, against sin, by way of a definitive rational proof (the lām [in li-yaghfira, ‘that He may forgive’] is for [indicating] the ultimate reason [for the conquest], so that the content [of this latter statement] constitutes an effect and not the cause), and that He may perfect, by way of the mentioned victory, His favour to you and guide you, thereby, to a straight path, upon which He will confirm you — and this [straight path] is the religion of Islam;

and that God may grant you, therein, a mighty victory, one of glory, involving no humiliation.

He it is Who sent down the spirit of Peace, [Divine] reassurance, into the hearts of the believers, that they might add faith to their faith, by way of [their embracing of] the legal stipulations of religion: for every time He revealed one [of these], they would believe in it — including the [command to] struggle. And to God belong the hosts of the heavens and the earth, and so if He wanted to bring victory to His religion by means of others, He would have done so. And God is ever Knower, of His creatures, Wise, in His actions, in other words, He is ever possessed of such attributes;

so that He may admit (li-yudkhila is semantically connected to an omitted clause, that is to say, amara bi’l-jihād, ‘He has enjoined the struggle [so that He may admit]’) the believing men and believing women into gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they will abide, and that He may absolve them of their misdeeds; for that, in God’s sight, is a supreme triumph;

and so that He may chastise the hypocrites, men and women, and the idolaters, men and women, and those who make evil assumptions about God (read al-saw’ or al-sū’, ‘evil’, in all three places); they assumed that He will not assist Muhammad (s) and the believers. For them will be an evil turn of fortune, by way of abasement and chastisement; and God is wroth with them, and He has cursed them, He has banished them [far from His mercy], and has prepared for them Hell — and it is an evil destination!, [an evil] place to return to.

And to God belong the hosts of the heavens and the earth; and God is ever Mighty, in His kingdom, Wise, in His actions, in other words, He is ever possessed of such attributes.

Indeed We have sent you as a witness, against your community at the Resurrection, and a bearer of good tidings, to them in this world, and a warner, to threaten those in it who do evil with [the punishment of] the Fire;

that you may believe (li-tu’minū, may also here be read li-yu’minū, ‘that they may believe’; and similarly read either the second person plural or the third person plural in the next three instances) in God and His Messenger, and that you may support Him (tu‘azzirūhu: a variant reading has tu‘azzizūhu) and revere Him (the [third person suffixed] pronoun [-hu, ‘him’] may refer either to God or to His Messenger) and glorify Him, that is, God, morning and evening.

Truly those who pledge allegiance to you, the ‘Pledge of Beatitude’ (bay‘at al-ridwān) given at al-Hudaybiyya, in fact pledge allegiance to God — this [statement] is akin to: Whoever obeys the Messenger, verily obeys God [Q. 4:80]. The Hand of God is above their hands, [the hands] with which they pledged allegiance to the Prophet, in other words, God, exalted be He, has observed their pledge of allegiance and will requite them in accordance with [their adherence to] it. So whoever reneges, [whoever] breaches the pledge, reneges — [that is] the evil consequences of his breach will eventually be — against his own soul; and whoever fulfils the covenant which he has made with God, He will give him (fa-sa-yu’tīhi; or read fa-sa-nu’tīhi, ‘We will give him’) a great reward.

Those of the Bedouins who were left behind, around Medina — that is to say, those whom God made to stay behind and not to accompany you when you had asked them to set out with you for Mecca, fearing that Quraysh would attack you upon your return, in the year of al-Hudaybiyya — will say to you, ‘Our possessions and our families kept us occupied, [preventing us] from going forth with you. So ask forgiveness for us!’, of God, for our failure to go forth with you. God, exalted be He, exposes their mendacity by saying: They say with their tongues, that is to say, in asking forgiveness, and in the preceding statement [of theirs], what is not in their hearts, and so they are lying in the excuse which they give. Say: ‘Who can (an interrogative meant [rhetorically] as a negation, that is to say, ‘none [can]’) avail you anything against God should He desire to cause you harm (read darran or durran) or desire to bring you benefit? Nay, but God is ever Aware of what you do, in other words, He is ever possessed of such an attribute.

Nay (bal in both instances marks a transition from one subject to another), but you thought that the Messenger and the believers would never return to their families, and that [thought] was adorned in your hearts, that is to say, [you thought] that they would be annihilated by being slain and would not return, and you thought evil thoughts, that [just mentioned], and other things, and you were a ruined lot’ (būr is the plural of bā’ir), in other words, [a lot to be] destroyed according to God for [having entertained] such [evil] thoughts.

And whoever does not believe in God and His Messenger, We have prepared for the disbelievers a blaze, a severe fire.

And to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth: He forgives whomever He will and chastises whomever He will; and God is ever Forgiving, Merciful, that is to say, He is ever possessed of the attributes mentioned.

Those, mentioned, who were left behind will say, when you set forth after spoils, namely, the spoils of Khaybar, in order to capture them, ‘Let us follow you’, that we might [also] take a share of it. They desire, thereby, to change the words of God (kalāma’Llāhi: a variant reading has kalima’Llāhi), in other words, His promising of the spoils of Khaybar exclusively for those who were at al-Hudaybiyya. Say: ‘You shall never follow us! Thus has God said beforehand’, that is, prior to our return. Then they will say, ‘Nay, but you are envious of us’, lest we might acquire a share of the spoils, and therefore you say this [that you say]. Nay, but they never understood, anything of religion, [all] except a few, of them.

Say to those of the Bedouins, mentioned, who were left behind, to test them: ‘You shall be called against a people possessed of great might — these are said to have been the [tribe of] Banū Hanīfa, the inhabitants of [the region of] al-Yamāma; but it is also said that these were the Persians and the Byzantines — you shall fight them (tuqātilūnahum is a circumstancial qualifier referring to an implied [future] situation, which constitutes that to which the ‘call’ will be made); or they will submit, so that you will not [have to] fight. So if you obey, [the command] to fight them, God will give you a good reward; but if you turn away like you turned away before, He will chastise you with a painful chastisement’.

There is no blame on the blind, nor [is there] blame on the lame, nor [is there] blame on the sick, to refrain from [participating in] the struggle. And whoever obeys God and His Messenger, He will admit him (read yudkhilhu, or nudkhilhu, ‘We will admit him’) into gardens underneath which rivers flow; and whoever turns away, him He will chastise (read yu‘adhdhibhu, or nu‘adhdhibhu, ‘him We will chastise’) with a painful chastisement.

Verily God was pleased with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you, at al-Hudaybiyya, under the tree, this was an acacia — they [these believers] numbered 1300 or more; he took an oath of allegiance from them that they would fight against Quraysh and not [attempt to] flee from death. And He, God, knew what was in their hearts, of sincerity and loyalty, so He sent down the spirit of Peace upon them, and rewarded them with a near victory, which was the conquest of Khaybar, following their departure from al-Hudaybiyya,

and abundant spoils which they will capture, from Khaybar, and God is ever Mighty, Wise, that is to say, He is ever possessed of such attributes.

God has promised you abundant spoils which you will capture, through the [various] conquests. So He has expedited this one, the spoils of Khaybar, for you, and withheld men’s hands from you, with regard to your families, after you had set off [on the campaign], as the Jews had intended [to plot] against them; but God cast terror into their hearts; so that it, the expedited one (wa-li-takūna is a supplement to an implied verb, that is to say, li-tashkurūhu, ‘that you may give thanks to Him’) may be a sign for the believers, of their being assisted [by God], and that He may guide you on a straight path, that is to say, the way in which you should rely on Him and entrust any affair to Him, exalted be He;

and others (wa-ukhrā is an adjectival qualification of the implied subject maghānima, ‘spoils’) which you were not able to capture — namely, [spoils] from the Persians and the Byzantines; God has verily encompassed these [already], that is to say, He knows that they will be yours. And God has power over all things, that is to say, He is ever possessed of such an attribute.

And if those who disbelieve had fought you, at al-Hudaybiyya, they would have turned their backs [to flee] — then they would not have found any protector, to guard them, or helper.

[That is] the way of God (sunnata’Llāhi is a verbal noun emphasising the import of the preceding sentence about the defeat of the disbelievers and the victory of the believers, that is to say, sanna’Llāhu dhālika sunnatan, ‘God has established this as [His] way [of dealing with believers and disbelievers]’) which has taken its course before, and you will never find in God’s way any change, by Him.

And it is He Who withheld their hands from you, and your hands from them, in the valley of Mecca, at al-Hudaybiyya, after He had made you victors over them: for eighty of them surrounded your camp in order to inflict losses upon you, but they were captured and taken to the Prophet (s), who pardoned them and set them free, and this resulted in the truce. And God is ever Seer of what you do (read ta‘malūna, or ya‘malūna, ‘they do’), that is to say, He is ever possessed of this attribute.

They are the ones who disbelieved and barred you from the Sacred Mosque, that is, [barred you] from reaching it, and [prevented] the offering (wa’l-hadya is a supplement to the [suffixed pronoun] –kum, ‘you’ [of saddūkum, ‘they barred you’]), which was detained (ma‘kūfan is a circumstantial qualifier), from reaching its destination, that is, [from] the place at which it is customarily sacrificed, namely, the Sanctuary [itself] (an yablugha mahillahu, is an inclusive substitution). And were it not for [some of] the believing men and believing women, being present at Mecca alongside the disbelievers, whom you did not know, to be believers — lest you should trample them, that is to say, [lest] you should slay them together with the disbelievers, had you been given permission to embark on the conquest (an tata’ūhum is an inclusive substitution for –hum, ‘them’ [of lam ta‘lamūhum, ‘whom you did not know’]), and thus incur sin on account of them without, your, knowing, it … (the third person pronouns in both groups [of people] predominantly imply males; the response to lawlā, ‘were it not’, has been omitted [through ellipsis], being [something along the lines of] la-udhina lakum fī’l-fathi, ‘you would have been permitted to embark on the conquest’), but permission for this was not given at the time, so that God may admit into His mercy whom He will, such as those believers mentioned. Had they been clearly separated, [had] they [the believers] been distinguishable from the disbelievers, We would have surely chastised the disbelievers among them, of the people of Mecca [immediately] thereat, by permitting you to go ahead with the conquest thereof, with a painful chastisement.

When those who disbelieve (alladhīna kafarū is the subject [of the following verb ja‘ala]) nourished (idh ja‘ala is semantically connected to ‘adhdhabnā) in their hearts zealotry (al-hamiyya, [means] ‘disdain of something’), the zealotry of pagandom (hamiyyata’l-jāhiliyyati substitutes for al-hamiyyata, ‘zealotry’), namely, their barring of the Prophet and his Companions from [visiting] the Sacred Mosque, [but] then God sent down His spirit of Peace upon His Messenger and the believers, and so they [the disbelievers] made a truce with them on the condition that they [the believers] would [be allowed to] return the following year, and [such] zealotry would not overcome them [the believers] as it did the disbelievers [then] until they would come to fight them [later], and He made them, the believers, abide by the word of God-fearing (kalimata’l-taqwā): ‘there is no god except God, [and] Muhammad is His Messenger’ (it [kalima, ‘word’] is annexed to al-taqwā because it is the cause of it), for they were worthier of it, of the word, than the disbelievers, and deserving of it (wa-ahlahā is an explanatory supplement). And God is ever Knower of all things, that is to say, He is ever possessed of such an attribute, and among the things He knows is that they are worthy of it.

Verily God has fulfilled the vision for His Messenger in all truth: The Messenger of God (s) saw in his sleep, in the year of al-Hudaybiyya before his departure [from Medina], that he would enter Mecca together with his Companions safely, whereafter they would shave [completely] or shorten [their hair]. He informed his Companions of this and they rejoiced. But when they set off with him [from Medina], and the disbelievers impeded them at al-Hudaybiyya such that they had to retreat, which was distressing for them, for some of the hypocrites began to have doubts [about the Prophet’s sincerity], this [verse] was revealed (bi’l-haqqi, ‘in all truth’, is semantically connected to sadaqa, ‘fulfilled’, or it is a circumstantial qualifier referring to al-ru’yā, ‘the vision’, and what comes after it is the explanation thereof): ‘You will assuredly enter the Sacred Mosque, God willing — this is [said] to secure blessings — in safety, to shave your heads, that is, all the hair, or to shorten [it], [to shorten] some of the hair (both muhalliqīna and muqassirīna are implied circumstantial qualifiers), without any fear’, ever. So He knew, [there to be] in the truce, what you did not know, in the way of reconciliation [between the believers and the Meccans], and assigned [you] before that, entry, a near victory, namely, the conquest of Khaybar — the vision was fulfilled in the following year.

It is He Who has sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it, that is, the religion of truth, prevail over all religion, over all the other religions. And God suffices as witness, to the fact that you have been sent with what has been mentioned, as God, exalted be He, says:

Muhammad (the subject) is the Messenger of God (its predicate) and those who are with him, that is, his Companions from among the believers (wa’lladhīna ma‘ahu, [another] subject, the predicate of which [is the following, ashiddā’u]) are hard, tough, against the disbelievers, showing them no mercy [but], merciful among themselves (ruhamā’u is a second predicate [of wa’lladhīna ma‘ahu, ‘and those who are with him’]), that is to say, they show mutual sympathy and affection for one another, much like a father and a son. You see, you observe, them bowing, prostrating [in worship] (both rukka‘an and sujjadan are circumstantial qualifiers). They seek (yabtaghūna is the beginning of a new sentence) bounty from God and beatitude. Their mark (sīmāhum is a subject), their distinguishing feature, is on their faces (fī wujūhihim is its predicate): this is a light and a radiance by which, in the Hereafter, they will be recognised as having been those who used to prostrate in this world, from the effect of prostration (min athari’l-sujūdi is semantically connected to the same thing to which the predicate is semantically connected, that is to say, kā’inatan, ‘[this] being [from the effect of prostration]’; syntactically, it is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject [of kā’inatan], which is also the subject of the predicate [sc. wujūhihim, ‘their faces’]). That, mentioned description, is their description (mathaluhum is the subject) in the Torah (fī’l-tawrāti is the predicate thereof); and their description in the Gospel (wa-mathaluhum fī’l-injīli, is a subject, the predicate of which is [what follows]) is as a seed that sends forth its shoot (read shat’ahu or shata’ahu) and strengthens it (read āzarahu or azarahu), nourishing it and assisting it, and it grows stout and rises firmly, becoming strong and upright, upon its stalk, its roots (sūq is the plural of sāq), delighting the sowers, that is to say those who planted it, on account of its fairness. The Companions, may God be pleased with them, are being described in this way, for at the outset they were weak and very few in number; but then their number grew and they acquired strength in the most wholesome way, so that He may enrage the disbelievers by them (li-yaghīza bihimu’l-kuffāra is semantically connected to an omitted clause, which is suggested by what preceded, that is to say, ‘they are likened to this [so that God may enrage the disbelievers]’). God has promised those of them who believe and perform righteous deeds, the Companions (minhum, ‘of them’: min, ‘of’, is an indicator of the genus and not partitive, for they are all possessed of the mentioned attributes) forgiveness and a great reward — Paradise. Both of these [rewards] will also be given to those who will come after them, as is stated in other verses.

O you who believe, do not venture ahead of (tuqaddimū, [derives] from qaddama, with the sense of [the 5th form] taqaddama), that is to say, do not come forward with any [unwarranted] saying or deed [ahead of], God and His Messenger, the one communicating [the Message] from Him, that is to say, without their permission, and fear God. Surely God is Hearer, of your sayings, Knower, of your deeds: this was revealed regarding the dispute between Abū Bakr and ‘Umar, may God be pleased with them both, in the presence of the Prophet (s), over the appointment of al-Aqra‘ b. Hābis or al-Qa‘qā‘ b. Ma‘bad as commander [of his tribe].

The following was revealed regarding those who raised their voices in the presence of the Prophet (s): O you who believe, do not raise your voices — when you [want to] speak — above the voice of the Prophet, when he is speaking, and do not shout words at him, when you [wish to] confide in him, as you shout to one another, but [speak] lower than that, out of reverence for him, lest your works should be invalidated without your being aware, that is to say, for fear of this [happening] as a result of the raising of voices and the shouting mentioned.

The following was revealed regarding those who used to lower their voices in the presence of the Prophet (s), such as Abū Bakr, ‘Umar and others, may God be pleased with [all of] them: Truly those who lower their voices in the presence of God’s Messenger — they are the ones whose hearts God has tested for God-fearing, that is to say, [He has tested them] so that this [fear of God] may manifest itself in them. For them will be forgiveness and a great reward: Paradise.

The following was revealed regarding a group of people who came to see the Prophet (s) during the midday [resting] period while he was in his house, and called out to him: Truly those who call you from behind the apartments, the [private] chambers of his womenfolk (hujurāt is the plural of hujra, which is an area of ground on which stones are laid [yuhjaru ‘alayhi] to form a wall or the like), and it happened that each one of them called out, in that rough and crude Bedouin manner, from behind one of the apartments, as they did not know in which apartment he was, most of them do not understand, given the way in which they acted, your exalted status and the reverence that befits it.

And had they been patient (annahum, ‘they’, has independent status, on account of inceptiveness; alternatively, it is said to govern an implied verb such as thabata, ‘had [their patience] been maintained’) until you came out to them, it would have been better for them; and God is Forgiving, Merciful, to those of them who repent.

The following was revealed regarding al-Walīd b. ‘Uqba whom the Prophet had sent to the Banū al-Mustaliq in order to ascertain [their loyalty to Islam]. He already feared them on account of an old feud between him and them from the time of pagandom [before Islam], and so [upon seeing them come out to him] he returned and claimed that they had refused to give the voluntary alms and intended to kill him. And just as the Prophet (s) was making plans to raid them, they came to him to disavow what he [al-Walīd] had said about them: O you who believe, if a reprobate should come to you with some tiding, some piece of information, verify [it], [ascertain] his truthfulness from his mendacity (fa-tabayyanū: a variant reading has fa-tathabbatū, from al-thabāt, ‘to ascertain’), lest you injure a folk (an tusībū qawman, an object denoting reason), that is to say, for fear of this [happening], out of ignorance (bi-jahālatin is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject [of the verb]), that is to say while you are ignorant; and then become remorseful of what you have perpetrated, erroneously against that folk. After they had returned to their homelands, the Prophet (s) sent Khālid [b. al-Walīd] to them, who observed only obedience and goodness in them and [later] informed the Prophet of this.

And know that the Messenger of God is among you, so do not speak falsehood, for God will inform him of the [real] state of affairs. If he were to obey you in many matters, which you communicate contrary to reality, so that the necessary [evil] consequences ensue, you would surely be in trouble, you would earn in addition to that sin, the sin for the consequences that ensue [from your error]. But God has endeared faith to you, adorning your hearts with it, and He has made odious to you disbelief and immorality and disobedience ([an instance of] suppletion with respect to import, as opposed to [lexical] form; for the one to whom ‘faith has been endeared …’ and so forth, will naturally be dissimilar in character to the mentioned [reprobate]). Those (there is here a shift from the second [to the third] person address) — they are the right-minded, the ones firmly established upon [the way of] their religion;

[that is] a favour from God (fadlan is a verbal noun, in the accusative because of the implied verbal action, that is, afdala, ‘He gives a favour’) and a grace, from Him, and God is Knower, of them, Wise, in His bestowal of graces on them.

And if two parties of believers (in tā’ifatāni mina’l-mu’minīna ... [to the end of] the verse, was revealed regarding a particular incident where the Prophet (s) was riding a donkey and happened to pass by Ibn Ubayy; the donkey urinated and so Ibn Ubayy held his nose, whereupon [‘Abd Allāh] Ibn Rawāhā said, ‘By God, the smell of the donkey’s urine is sweeter-smelling than your musk. Fighting then ensued between the two clans with fists, sandals and palm branches [being thrown about]) fall to fighting (iqtatalū: the plural is used on account of the [plural] import, for each party is made up of several individuals; a variant reading has [the dual form] iqtatalatā), make peace between them (baynahumā: the dual here takes into account the actual [dual] form [of tā’ifatān, ‘two parties’]). And if one of them aggresses against the other, fight the one which aggresses until it returns to God’s ordinance, [to] the truth. Then, if it returns, reconcile them, fairly, and act justly. Surely God loves the just.

The believers are indeed brothers, in religion. Therefore [always] make peace between your brethren, when they fall into dispute with one another (a variant reading [for the dual form akhawaykum, ‘your two brethren’] has ikhwatakum, ‘your brothers’) and fear God, so that perhaps you might receive mercy.

O you who believe, do not let any people, that is, any men among you, deride (yā ayyuhā’lladhīna āmanū lā yaskhar … [to the end of] the verse, was revealed regarding the [Banū] Tamīm delegation when they derided the poor among the Muslims, like ‘Ammār [b. Yāsir] and Suhayb [al-Rūmī]; al-sukhriya means ‘scorn’ and ‘disdain’) another people: who may be better than they are, in God’s sight; nor let any women, from among you, deride [other] women who may be better than they are. And do not defame one another, do not cast aspersions [on others] and hence have aspersions cast on you, that is, let none among you denigrate another; nor insult one another by nicknames, do not call another by a nickname which he detests, such as ‘O degenerate one!’ or ‘O disbeliever!’. Evil is the name, mentioned out of mockery, derision and mutual reviling, of immorality after faith! (al-fusūqu ba‘da’l-īmāni substitutes for al-ismu, ‘the name’, to indicate that it [such naming of others] is ‘immorality’ as it is [an action which is] usually repeated). And whoever does not repent, of such [immorality], those — they are the evildoers.

O you who believe, shun much suspicion. Indeed some suspicions are sins, that is to say, it causes one to fall into sin. This [suspicion] may have many forms, such as thinking ill of the good folk from among the believers — and such [good folk] are many — in contrast to the immoral individuals among them in whose case there is no sin, so long as it [the suspicion] is in accordance with their outward behaviour. And do not spy (tajassasū: one of the two tā’ letters [of tatajassasū] has been omitted): do not pursue the imperfections and faults of Muslims by searching them out; nor backbite one another, do not speak of him by [mentioning] something which he is averse to [having mentioned of himself], even if it be true. Would any of you love to eat the flesh of his brother dead? (read maytan or mayyitan). That is to say, it would not be right for him [to do so]. You would abhor it. Thus to backbite him in life would be like eating his flesh when he is dead. This latter [form of behaviour] has been suggested to you and you were averse to it, so be averse to the former too. And fear God, that is, His punishment for backbiting, by repenting of it; assuredly God is Relenting, accepting of the penitence of those who repent, Merciful, to them.

O mankind! We have indeed created you from a male and a female, [from] Adam and Eve, and made you nations (shu‘ūb is the plural of sha‘b, which is the broadest category of lineage) and tribes (qabā’il, which are smaller than nations, and are followed by ‘amā’ir, ‘tribal districts’, then butūn, ‘tribal sub-districts’, then afkhādh, ‘sub-tribes’, and finally fasā’il, ‘clans’; for example Khuzayma is the sha‘b, while Kināna is the qabīla, Quraysh is the ‘imāra, Qusayy is the batn, Hāshim is the fakhdh, and ‘Abbās is the fasīla) that you may come to know one another (ta‘ārafū: one of the two tā’ letters [of tata‘ārafū] has been omitted), that you may acquire knowledge of [the customs of] one another and not to boast to one another of [whose is the more] noble lineage, for pride lies only in [the extent to which you have] fear of God. Truly the noblest of you in the sight of God is the most God-fearing among you. Truly God is Knower, of you, Aware, of your inner thoughts.

The Bedouins — a group of men from among the Banū Asad — say, ‘We believe’, we affirm the truth in our hearts. Say, to them: ‘You do not believe; but rather say, “We have submitted”, we are outwardly compliant; for faith has not yet entered into your hearts’, hitherto; however, it is expected of you. Yet if you obey God and His Messenger, by [embracing] faith and in other ways, He will not diminish for you (read ya’litkum or yalitkum, by making the hamza an alif) anything of your deeds, that is, of the reward for them. God is indeed Forgiving, to believers, Merciful, to them.

The [true] believers, that is, those who are true in their [affirmation of] faith — as He makes explicit in what follows — are only those who believe in God and His Messenger, and then have not doubted, they have not been uncertain of [their] faith, and who strive with their wealth and their souls for the cause of God, hence their striving manifests the sincerity of their faith. It is they who are sincere, in their faith, not those who say, ‘We believe’, and from whom all that has been forthcoming is their submission [to the religion].

Say, to them: ‘Do you [pretend to] inform God about your religion (read the doubled [2nd verbal] form a-tu‘allimūna, ‘do you inform’), in other words, are you intimating to Him your [religious] status when you say, ‘We believe’, when God knows all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth, and [even though] God is Knower of all things?’

They deem it to be a favour to you that they have submitted, without [the need for any] fighting, unlike [those] others who submitted only after being fought. Say: ‘Do not deem your submission to be a favour to me (islāmakum, ‘your submission’, has dependent accusative status because of the omission of the genitive preposition bi-,which is also read as implicit before the an in both instances). Rather, it is God Who has done you a favour in that He has guided you to faith, if you are being sincere, when you say, ‘We believe’.

Truly God knows the Unseen of the heavens and the earth, that is, [He knows] all that is hidden in both, and God is Seer of what you do’ (may be read either as ya‘malūna, ‘they do’, or ta‘malūna, ‘you do’), nothing of which can be concealed from Him.

Qāf: God knows best what He means by this [letter]. By the glorious Qur’ān, [by] the noble [Qur’ān], the disbelievers of Mecca have [certainly] not believed in Muhammad (s).

Nay, but they consider it odd that there should have come to them a warner from among themselves, a messenger who is one of them, to threaten them with [the punishment of] the Fire after resurrection. So the disbelievers say, ‘This, warning, is an odd thing!

What! (read a-idhā pronouncing both hamzas, or not pronouncing the second, but inserting an alif between the two in both cases) When we are dead and have become dust?, shall we return [to life]? That is a far-fetched return!’, [an event that is] extremely remote.

We know what the earth diminishes, consumes, of them, and with Us is a preserving Book, namely, the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfūz), which contains everything that has been ordained [by God].

Nay, but they denied the truth, the Qur’ān, when it came to them and so they, with regard to the Prophet (s) and the Qur’ān, are [now] in a confounded situation, a troubled [one]. [For] on one occasion they said [that he was], ‘A sorcerer!’ [cf. Q. 38:4] and [that his statements were] ‘[Nothing but manifest] sorcery!’ [cf. Q. 37:15], on another, ‘A poet!’ [cf. Q. 21:5] and ‘Poetry!’ [cf. Q. 36:69], and still on another, ‘A soothsayer!’ [cf. Q. 52:29] and [that his statements were nothing more than] soothsaying [cf. Q. 69:42].

Have they not then looked, with their own eyes, at the heaven, being, above them, in order to take heed by their own minds [of the consequences for them] when they deny the Resurrection, how We have built it, without supports, and adorned it, with planets, and how there are no cracks in it?, no fissures blemishing it.

And the earth (wa’l-arda, is a supplement to the position of the words ilā l-samā’i, ‘at the heaven’), how, We have spread it out, [how] We have rolled it across the face of the water, and cast in it firm mountains, to fix it in place, and caused every delightful kind, [every delightful] specimen, causing delight by its [very] beauty, to grow in it,

as an insight (tabsiratan is a direct object denoting reason, that is to say, We did this to give an insight from Us) and a reminder for every penitent servant, who returns to obedience of Us.

And We send down from the heaven blessed water, containing much blessing, with which We cause to grow gardens, orchards, and the grain that is harvested,

and the date-palms that stand tall (bāsiqātin, is an implied [future] circumstantial qualifier) with piled spathes, one [cluster of dates] sitting on top of the other,

as provision for [Our] servants (rizqan li’l-‘ibādi, is a direct object denoting reason); and with it We revive a dead land (baldatan may be followed equally by the masculine [maytan] or the feminine [adjective, maytatan]). So, like that manner of reviving, shall be the rising, from the graves: so how can you deny it? (the interrogative is meant as an affirmative; the meaning then is that they have indeed observed [all of these things] and are aware of what has been mentioned [yet they disbelieve]).

The people of Noah denied before them (kadhdhabat has a feminine person inflection because of the [feminine gender of the] import of qawm, ‘people’) and [so did] the dwellers at al-Rass — this was the name of a well around which they dwelt together with their livestock; they worshipped idols, and it is said that their prophet was one Hanzala b. Safwān; but some say that he was some other [person] — and Thamūd, the people of Sālih,

and ‘Ād, the people of Hūd, and Pharaoh, the brethren of Lot,

and the dwellers in the wood, a small forest — the people of Shu‘ayb — and the people of Tubba‘ — a king [who ruled] in Yemen; he had submitted [to God] and had summoned his people to [the same] submission [to God], but they denied him. Each, of those mentioned, denied the messengers, as [your tribe] Quraysh have, and so My threat became due, the sending down of chastisement on all [of them] became incumbent, so do not be anguished by Quraysh’s disbelieving in you.

Were We then wearied by the first creation?, that is to say, We were not wearied by it, and likewise We will not be wearied by restoring it. Nay, yet they are in doubt about a new creation, which will be [at] the Resurrection.

And verily We created man and We know (wa-na‘lamu is a circumstantial qualifier with an implicit [preceding] nahnu) what (mā relates to the verbal action) his soul whispers to him, [what] it speaks [to him] (the bi- [of bihi, ‘him’] is extra, or it is [required] for the intransitive verb to become transitive [and take a direct object]; the [suffixed] personal pronoun [in bihi, ‘him’] refers to man); and We are nearer to him, in knowing [him], than his jugular vein (habli’l-warīdi: the genitive annexation is explicative; al-warīdān are two [principal] veins on either side of the neck).

When (idh is dependent because of an implied udhkur, ‘mention’) the two Receivers, the two angels charged with [recording] a person’s deeds, receive, [when they] observe and record, seated, that is, [while] both of them are sitting (qa‘īdun, ‘seated’, is the subject, the predicate of which is the preceding [clause]), on the right and on the left, [hand side] of him —

he does not utter a word but that there is beside him a watcher, a guardian, [who is] ready, present (both [raqībun, ‘watcher’, and ‘atīdun, ‘ready’] are meant to indicate the dual).

And the agony of death, its throes and distress, arrives with the truth, of the Hereafter, such that the one who denied it sees it with his own eyes — and this is the distress itself. That, namely, death, is what you used to shun, [what you used] to flee from and be terrified by.

And the Trumpet will be blown, for resurrection. That, namely, the day of the blast, is the Day of the Promised Threat, of chastisement for the disbelievers.

And, thereat, every soul will come, to the site for the Gathering, accompanied by a driver, an angel to drive it there, and a witness, to testify to its deeds, namely, the hands and the feet and others; and it will be said to the disbeliever:

‘Verily, in the world, you were oblivious of this, that has befallen you on this day; So [now] We have removed from you your covering, We have done away with your oblivion by what you witness on this day, and so your sight on this day is acute’, [it is] sharp, able to perceive what you used to reject in the world.

And his companion, the angel charged with him, will say, ‘This is what I have ready with me [as testimony]’, whereupon it will be said to Mālik [the Keeper of the Fire]:

‘Cast into Hell (alqiyā: meaning [either] alqi alqi, ‘cast, cast …’ [to denote repetition], or [the emphatic form] alqiyan, ‘cast!’, which is the reading of al-Hasan [al-Basrī], in other words, the [final] nūn has been changed into an alif), every obdurate disbeliever, obstinate to the truth,

hinderer of good, such as [the payment of] alms, transgressor, wrongdoer, skeptic, a doubter of his religion,

who has set up alongside God another god! (alladhī ja‘ala ma‘a’Llāhi ilāhan ākhara is the subject, with an implicitly conditional import, the predicate of which is [the following]). Cast him then into the severe chastisement’ (the explanation of this [dual form of the verb alqiyāhu, ‘cast him’] is as above).

And his companion, Satan, will say, ‘Our Lord! I did not make him a rebel, I did [not] lead him astray, but he [himself] was in extreme error’, and so when I invited him [to disobedience] he heeded my call — for this one had said, ‘he [Satan] made me a rebel’, by way of his [Satan’s] invitation to him.

He, exalted be He, will say, ‘Do not dispute in My presence, in other words, disputing is of no use here, for I had already given you, in [the life of] the world, the threat, of chastisement in the Hereafter should you not believe, and so it is [now] inevitable.

The word [that comes] from Me, in this respect, cannot be altered, and I am not unjust to servants’, that I should chastise them without any guilt [on their part] (zallām means dhū zulm, ‘one of injustice’, because of His words, There will be no injustice today [Q. 40:17]);

on the day (yawma is in the accusative because of zallām, ‘unjust’) when We will say (naqūlu, may also be read yaqūlu, ‘He will say’) to Hell, ‘Are you [now] full?’ (this interrogative is for confirmation of His promise to fill it [with mankind and jinn]), and it will say, by way of an interrogative, such as a question: ‘Are there any more?’: that is to say, ‘I [Hell] only have capacity for what I have been filled with’, in other words, ‘I am full!’.

And Paradise will be brought near for the God-fearing, to a place, not far [anymore], from them, and so they see it, whereupon it will be said to them:

‘This, that you see, is what you were promised (read tū‘adūna, or [third person plural] yū‘adūna, ‘they were promised’), in the world (and [what follows] substitutes for li’l-muttaqīna, ‘for the God-fearing’) — [it is] for every penitent one, [for every] person reverting [after sin] to obedience of God, who is mindful, mindful of the bounds [of God’s religion],

who fears the Compassionate One [while He is] in the Unseen, [the one who] fears Him without having seen Him, and comes with a penitent heart’, [a heart] eagerly applying itself to obedience of Him.

It will also be said to the God-fearing: ‘Enter it in peace!, that is to say, secure from every fear, or [it means enter it] with a greeting, that is to say, greet [yourselves] and enter. That, day in which this entry takes place, is the day of immortality’, [of] everlastingness in Paradise.

Therein they will have whatever they wish; and with Us there is yet more, as extra for what they did and for what they will request.

And how many a generation We destroyed before them, that is, before the disbelievers of Quraysh We destroyed many generations of disbelievers, who were mightier than these in prowess, and [who] then searched throughout the land [wondering]: is there any escape?, for them and others from death, but they found none.

Assuredly there is in that, which is mentioned, a reminder, an admonition, for him who has a heart, a mind, or gives ear, [or] listens to admonitions, in [full] witness, present in heart [and mind].

And verily We created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, in six days, the first of which was Sunday and the last of which was Friday, and no weariness, no fatigue, touched Us: this was revealed as a refutation of the Jews’ claim that God rested on the Saturday and lay down upon the Throne. The preclusion of weariness in His case is [absolute] on account of His transcending of the attributes of creatures and the non-existence of any contiguity between Him and other [beings]: His command, when He wills a thing, is just to say to it ‘Be’, and it is [Q. 36:82].

So endure [patiently], addressing the Prophet (s), what they, the Jews and others, say, in the way of [anthropomorphic] comparisons and denials, and glorify with praise of your Lord, perform prayers with praise [of Him], before the rising of the sun, in other words, [perform] the morning prayer, and before the sunset, that is to say, [perform] both the midday and the afternoon prayers;

and glorify Him at [some part of the] night, that is to say, perform the two evening prayers, and after prostrations (read adbār, as the plural of dubur, or idbār as the verbal noun from adbara, ‘to pass’), in other words, perform supererogatory prayers as prescribed by the Sunna after the obligatory ones; it is also said to mean the actual uttering of glorifications at these times, with continuous praise.

And listen — O addressee to My words — on the day when the caller, namely, [the archangel] Isrāfīl, calls out from a place that is near, to the heaven: this is the Rock of the Holy House [of Jerusalem], the place on earth that is the nearest to the heaven. He [Isrāfīl] will say: ‘O withered bones, severed limbs, torn flesh and scattered hairs! God verily commands you to come together for the passing of judgement’.

On the day (yawma substitutes for the previous yawma) when they, that is, all creatures, hear the Call of truth, of the Resurrection — this will be Isrāfīl’s second blast, and it may precede or follow his [initial] call — that, day of the call and the hearing, is the day of coming forth, from the graves (yawma, ‘on the day, is in the accusative because of an implied yunādī, ‘[when] he will call’), that is to say, they will come to know the consequence of their denial.

Indeed it is We Who give life and bring death, and to Us is the journey’s end.

On the day when (yawma substitutes for the previous yawma, with the intervening [statement] being a parenthetical) the earth is split asunder (read tashaqqaqu, or tashshaqqaqu, where the original second tā’ [of tatashaqqaqu] has been assimilated with it [the shīn]) from them, [they will come] hastening forth (sirā‘an: [sirā‘] the plural of sarī‘, a circumstantial qualifier referring to an implied clause, that is to say [together they would read] fa-yakhrujūna musri‘īna, ‘they come forth hastening’). That is an easy gathering for Us (dhālika hashrun ‘alaynā yasīr: there is here a separation of the noun from its adjective by what is semantically connected to it, for the purpose of specification — which is [rhetorically] unobjectionable; dhālika, ‘that’, is meant to point out the signification of the ‘gathering’, which itself is [also] predicated by this [demonstrative particle], and this signification is the bringing back to life after extinction and the assembly for the exposition and the reckoning [before God]).

We know best what they, the disbelievers of the Quraysh, say, and you are not [to be] a coercer of them, so as to coerce them to [embrace] faith — but this was [revealed] before the command to struggle [against these disbelievers]. So admonish by the Qur’ān those who fear My threat, namely, believers.

By the scatterers, the winds that scatter dust and other things, that scatter (dharwan is a verbal noun; one may also say, tadhrīhi dharyan, ‘it blows it [sweeping it] away’);

and those that bear, the clouds that bear moisture [as], a burden (wiqran is the direct object of al-hāmilat, ‘those that bear’);

and those that run, the ships that run upon the surface of the water, with ease (yusran is a verbal noun functioning as a circumstantial qualifier, that is to say, muyassaratan);

and those that apportion by command: the angels who distribute provisions and the rains and other things across the lands and to [all] servants,

assuredly what you are promised (mā, ‘what’, relates to the verbal action), in other words, the promise given to them of resurrection and other matters, is true, is indeed a true promise,

and assuredly judgement, requital after the reckoning, will take place!, without doubt.

And by the heaven with all its tracks (hubuk is the plural of habīka, similar [in pattern and meaning] to turuq, tarīqa, ‘paths’), that is to say, [by the heaven] that is created with tracks similar to tracks made in the sand,

indeed you, O people of Mecca, with regard to the matter of the Prophet (s) and the Qur’ān, are of differing opinions: some say [of the Prophet that he is] ‘a poet’, ‘a sorcerer’, or ‘a soothsayer’, and [of the Qur’ān, that it is] ‘poetry’, ‘sorcery’, or ‘soothsaying’.

He is turned away therefrom, from the Prophet (s) and the Qur’ān, that is, [turned away] from believing therein, who has deviated, [who has been] turned away from guidance in God’s, exalted be He.

Perish the conjecturers, accursed be the liars, those of differing opinions,

who are in a stupor, in ignorance that has stupefied them, heedless, oblivious of the matter of the Hereafter.

They ask, the Prophet, asking [him] derisively: ‘When is the Day of Judgement?’, in other words, ‘when will it come?’, and the response [given] to them is that it will come:

on the day when they will be tormented in the Fire, that is to say, chastised in it, and it will be said to them during the chastisement:

‘Taste this torment of yours, this chastisement of yours. This, chastisement, is what you sought to hasten on!’, in the world in derision.

Truly the God-fearing will be amid gardens, orchards, and springs, flowing therein,

receiving (ākhidhīna is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the person of the predicate of inna, ‘truly’) what their Lord has given them, of reward, for indeed formerly, [before] their entering Paradise, they had been virtuous, in the world.

Little of the night did they use to sleep (mā is extra; yahja‘ūna is the predicate of kānū; qalīlan, ‘little’, is an adverb), in other words, they used to sleep for a small portion of the night and perform prayers during most of it,

and at dawns they used to seek forgiveness: they used say, ‘Our Lord! Forgive us’,

and there was a share in their wealth [assigned] for the beggar and the deprived, [the latter being] the one who does not beg, because of his self-restraint.

And in the earth, in the way of mountains, seas, trees, fruits, plants and other things, there are signs, indications of God’s power, glory be to Him, exalted be He, and of His Oneness, for those who know with certainty,

and in your souls, there are also signs, from the beginning of your creation to its end, and in the marvelous aspects of your creation. Will you not then perceive?, [all] that and thus infer therefrom the Creator of it and His power.

And in the heaven is your provision, that is, the rain from which results the vegetation that is [your] provision, and [there is also] what you are promised, in the way of [the ultimate] return, reward and punishment, in other words, all of this is foreordained in the heaven.

So by the Lord of the heaven and the earth, it, that which you are promised, is as assuredly true as [the fact] that you have [power of] speech (read mithlu, in the nominative, as an adjective, with the mā being extra; or read mithla, in the accusative, as being a compound with mā), that is to say: [it is as true] as your speech is in reality, that is, in your knowing it to be [true] necessarily by its issuing from you.

Has the story reached you — addressing the Prophet (s) — of Abraham’s honoured guests? — these were [said to be either] twelve, ten or three angels, one of whom was Gabriel.

When (idh is an adverbial qualifier of hadīthu dayfi, ‘the story of the guests’) they entered upon him and said, ‘Peace!’ — in other words [they said] these very words. He said, ‘Peace!’ — [also] these very words — [These are] an unfamiliar folk, whom we do not know — he said this to himself (qawmun munkarūna is the predicate of an implicit subject such as hā’ūlā’i, ‘these are’).

Then he went aside to his family, secretly, and brought a fat calf — in sūrat Hūd [it is said], a roasted calf [Q. 11:69] —

and he placed it near them saying, ‘Will you not eat?’: he invited them to eat, but they did not respond.

Then he conceived, he kept secret in himself, a fear of them. They said, ‘Do not be afraid!’, we are messengers from your Lord. And they gave him good tidings of [the birth of] a knowledgeable boy, one endowed with much knowledge, and this was Isaac, as mentioned in sūrat Hūd [Q. 11:71].

Then his wife, Sarah, came forward clamouring, shouting (fī sarratin is a circumstantial qualifier, that is to say, she came shouting) and smote, slapped, her face, and said, ‘A barren old woman!’, who has never given birth to a child, aged ninety-nine, with Abraham being one hundred years old; or [alternatively] he was a hundred and twenty years old and she was ninety years old.

They said, ‘So, just like what we have said with regard to the good tiding, has your Lord said. Indeed He is the Wise, in His actions, the Knower’, of His creatures.

He said, ‘So what is your business, O you who have been sent [by God]?’

They said, ‘Lo! we have been sent to a guilty folk, disbelievers — these were the people of Lot —

that we may unleash upon them stones of clay, baked in fire,

marked, bearing the name of the person at whom it will be hurled, by your Lord (‘inda rabbika is an adverbial qualifier of musawwamatan, ‘marked’) for [the destruction of] the prodigal’, for coming unto males in addition to their disbelief.

So We brought forth those in them, that is, [in] the towns of the people of Lot, who were believers, in order to destroy the disbelievers;

but We did not find therein other than one house of those who had submitted [to God]: these were Lot and his two daughters. They have been described [here] with [the terms] ‘belief’ and ‘submission’ because they had affirmed [faith] in their hearts and used their limbs to perform acts of obedience.

And We left therein, after destroying the disbelievers, a sign, an indication of their destruction, for those who fear the painful chastisement, so that they may not do what these [sinners] did.

And [a sign too] in Moses (wa-fī Mūsā is a supplement to fīhā, ‘therein’), that is to say, We also left a sign in the story of Moses, when We sent him to Pharaoh, vested, with a clear warrant, with a manifest proof;

but he turned away, he rejected belief, to his supports (bi-ruknihi), his hosts, [so called] because to him they are like a support [rukn], saying, to Moses that he [Moses] was: ‘A sorcerer, or a madman!’

So We seized him and his hosts and cast, flung, them into the waters, the sea, and so they drowned, for he, that is, Pharaoh, was blameworthy, guilty of what is blameworthy, such as denying the messengers and claiming divinity.

And [also] in, the destruction of, ‘Ād, was a sign, when We unleashed against them a barren wind, [a wind] which brings nothing of good, for it does not bear any rain and does not pollinate any trees; this [wind] was the west wind (al-dabūr).

It did not leave anything, any soul or property, that it came upon without making it like decayed bones, like something that is withered and in scattered pieces.

And [also] in, the destruction of, Thamūd, was a sign, when it was said to them, after the hamstringing of the she-camel, ‘Enjoy [yourselves] for a while!’, until the end of your terms [of life] — as stated in the [other] verse, ‘Enjoy [yourselves] in your dwellings for three days’ [Q.11:65].

Then they defied, they scorned, the command of their Lord, [refraining] from implementing it; so the thunderbolt, that is, the destructive cry, seized them, after the three days had passed, as they were looking around, in other words, [it seized them] in the daytime.

So they were unable to rise up, they could not get up upon the sending down of the chastisement, nor were they victors, over the One Who destroyed them.

And the people of Noah (read wa qawmi Nūhin, as a supplement to Thamūda, in other words: ‘in the destruction of these [two peoples] by what [destructive power] exists in the heavens and the earth there is [also] a sign’; or read wa qawma Nūhin, in other words, ‘We also destroyed the people of Noah’) aforetime, that is, before the destruction of those mentioned. Indeed they were an immoral lot.

And the heaven, We built it with might, and indeed We are powerful (one says āda’l-rajulu or ya’īdu, to mean, ‘he is strong’; and awsa‘a’l-rajulu, to mean, ‘he has become capable [dhū sa‘a] and strong’).

And the earth, We spread it out: We made it level: what excellent Spreaders then!, We are.

And of all things (wa-min kulli shay’in is semantically connected to His [following] words khalaqnā) We created pairs, two kinds, such as male and female, heaven and earth, sun and moon, plain and mountain, summer and winter, sweet and bitter, light and darkness, that perhaps you might remember (tadhakkarūna: one of the two original tā’ letters [of tatadhakkarūna] has been omitted), and hence realise that the Creator of pairs is [Himself] Singular, that you might then worship him.

So flee unto God, that is to say, away from His punishment toward His reward by being obedient to Him and not disobeying Him. Truly I am a clear warner to you from Him.

And do not set up another god alongside God. Truly I am a clear warner to you from Him (before fa-firrū, ‘so flee’, one may read an implicit [preceding] qul lahum, ‘Say to them’).

Thus there did not come to those who were before them any messenger but they said, that he was: ‘A sorcerer, or a madman!’, in other words, their denial of you, by saying that you are a sorcerer or a madman, was like the denial of communities before them of their messengers by saying that [same thing].

Have they, all, enjoined this upon one another? (an interrogative intended as a denial). Nay, but they are an insolent folk, [a folk] whose own [proclivity to] insolence has made them all say the same thing.

So shun them, for you will not be reproached, because you have conveyed the Message to them.

And remind, admonish by the Qur’ān, for reminding truly benefits believers, [these being] those whom God knows that they will believe.

And I did not create the jinn and mankind except that they may worship Me: the fact that disbelievers do not worship [God] does not contradict this [statement], since a purpose does not have to be realised [in an act, for it to be valid], as when you may say: ‘I sharpened this pencil in order to write with it’, even though you might not actually write with it.

I do not desire from them any provision, [either] for Myself, for themselves, or for others, nor do I desire that they should feed Me, or [feed] themselves or others.

Indeed it is God Who is the Provider, the Lord of Strength, the Firm, the Stern.

And for those who have wronged, their souls through disbelief, from among the people of Mecca and others, there will assuredly be a lot, a share of chastisement, like the lot, the share, of their counterparts, who perished before them. So let them not ask Me to hasten on, the chastisement, should I give them respite until the Day of Resurrection.

For woe, a terrible chastisement [will come], to those who disbelieve, from, upon, that day of theirs which they are promised, that is, the Day of Resurrection.

By the Mount, that is, the [name of the] mountain on which God spoke to Moses,

and an inscribed Book,

on an unrolled parchment, that is, the Torah or the Qur’ān.

By the [greatly] frequented House — which is [located] in the third, or the sixth or the seventh heaven, directly above the Ka‘ba; it is visited every day by seventy thousand angels, circumambulating it and performing prayers [around it], and never returning to it;

and the raised roof, that is to say, the heaven,

and the swarming sea: that is to say, the one that is filled:

lo! your Lord’s chastisement will assuredly take place, it will assuredly come down on those who deserve it;

there is none that can avert it, from such [a deserving one].

On the day (yawma is operated by la-wāqi‘un, ‘will assuredly take place’) when the heaven will heave with a great heaving, [when it will] move and spin,

and the mountains move with a great motion, becoming scattered dust, this is the Day of Resurrection.

Woe then, terrible chastisement [will come], on that day to the deniers, of the messengers,

those who play around in vain talk, [in] falsehood, that is to say, those who are busily engaged with their disbelief;

the day when they will be thrust with a violent thrust into Hell, [when] they will be pushed violently (this [last clause, yawma yuda‘‘ūna ilā nāri jahannama da‘‘an] is a substitution for yawma tamūru, ‘the day when [the heaven] will heave’) and it will be said to them in reproach:

‘This is the Fire which you used to deny!

Is this then sorcery, [this] chastisement that you see — as you were wont to say about the revelation, that it was sorcery — or is it that you do not see?

Burn in it! And whether you endure, it, or do not endure, your endurance and your anguish, will be the same for you, because your endurance will be of no use to you. You are only being requited for what you used to do’, that is to say, [only] the requital for it.

Truly the God-fearing will be amid gardens and bliss,

rejoicing, delighting, in what (bi-mā relates to the verbal action) their Lord has given them, and [that] their Lord has shielded them from the chastisement of Hell-fire (wa-waqāhum rabbuhum ‘adhāba’l-jahīmi is a supplement to ātāhum, ‘[what He] has given them’, in other words, [rejoicing] in their having been given [this reward] and shielded [from Hell-fire]).

And it will said to them: ‘Eat and drink in full enjoyment (hanī’an is a circumstantial qualifier, that is to say, muhanna’īna) [as a reward] for what (bi-mā: the bi- is causative) you used to do’.

[They will be] reclining (muttaki’īna is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the concealed subject of God’s words fī jannātin, ‘amid gardens’) on ranged couches, [arranged] one next to the other, and We will wed them (zawwajnāhum is a supplement to jannātin, ‘gardens’, meaning ‘We will couple them’) to beautiful houris, of wide and beautiful eyes.

And those who believed (wa’lladhīna āmanū, the subject) and whom We made to be followed (wa-atba‘nāhum: a variant reading has wa’ttaba‘athum, ‘and there followed them’, as a supplement to āmanū, ‘who believed’) by their descendants (dhurrīyātihim: a variant reading [for this plural] has dhurrīyatuhum), young and old, in faith, on the part of the older ones and on the part of the parents in [their] young ones (the predicate [of the subject above] is [the following, alhaqnā bihim), We will make their, mentioned, descendants join them, in Paradise, so that they are in the same degree [of reward], even though they might not have performed the same [meritorious] deeds as them [to deserve this equal status], a way of honouring the parents by having their children join them [again]; and We will not deprive them (read alatnāhum or alitnāhum), [We will not] diminish [them], of anything (min shay’in: min is extra) of their deeds, in order to add it to the deeds of their children. Every man is subject to what he has earned, of good or evil deeds, and will be requited for evil and rewarded for good.

And We will supply them, We will enhance for them [their provision], from time to time, with fruits and meat, such as they desire, even if they do not request it openly.

They will pass from one to another therein, in Paradise, a cup, [of] wine, wherein is neither vain talk, which might come about between them as a result of drinking it, nor cause for sin, thereby, that might befall them — in contrast to [the case with] the wine of this world.

And there will circulate from all around them, for service, youths, delicate [in demeanour], of their own, as if, in terms of their beauty and immaculateness, they were hidden pearls, preserved inside shells, because when it [a pearl] is inside it, it is better than one that is not.

And some among them will turn to one another, questioning each other — they ask one another about how they were in the past and what they have now attained, in their delight and acknowledgement of the grace [of God to them].

They say, as an intimation of the reason for this attainment: ‘Truly, before, amid our families, in the world, we used to be ever anxious, afraid of God’s chastisement;

but God showed us favour, through [His] forgiveness, and shielded us from the piercing chastisement (al-samūm), the Fire, so called because it penetrates the pores (al-masāmm); and they say, also by way of intimation:

indeed before, that is, in the world, we used to call on Him, worship Him, affirming His Oneness. Verily He is (read innahu as the beginning of a new [independent] sentence, even if it introduces the reason in terms of its import; or read annahu as a reason in terms of the [syntactical] order of the words) the Benign, the Beneficent, the True to His promise, the Merciful, One of tremendous mercy.

So remind, persist in reminding the idolaters and do not desist [from this] even if they say to you that you are a soothsayer or a madman. For by the grace of your Lord, by His bestowal of grace on you, you are neither soothsayer (bi-kāhinin is the predicate of mā) nor madman (wa-lā majnūnin, a supplement to it).

Or (am means bal) do they say, that he is: ‘A poet, for whom we may await the accidents of fate?’, the vicissitudes of time, so that he will just die like other poets.

Say: ‘Await!, my death. For I too will be with you awaiting’, your death. They were then chastised with [death by] the sword on the day of Badr.

Or do their faculties of understanding prompt them to [say] this?, their saying to him: [you are either] a sorcerer, a poet, a soothsayer or a madman, in other words, they do not [in reality] prompt them to [say] this. Or (am, [in effect] means bal, ‘rather’) are they a rebellious lot?, because of their obstinacy.

Or do they say, ‘He has improvised it?’, he has concocted the Qur’ān. He has not concocted it; Rather they do not believe, out of arrogance. If they [continue to] say that he has concocted it:

Then let them bring a, concocted, discourse like it, if they are truthful, in what they say.

Or were they created out of nothing?, [that is] without a Creator. Or are they the creators?, of themselves. It makes no sense for a created thing to have no creator, nor can a thing that will cease to existent [have the power to] create. There must be a Creator of them, and that is God, the One, so why do they not affirm His Oneness and believe in His Messenger and His Book?

Or did they create the heavens and the earth? Nor can any but God, the Creator, have created them, so why do they not worship Him? Nay, but they are not certain, of Him, for otherwise they would have believed in His Prophet.

Or do they possess the treasuries of your Lord?, in the way of prophethood, provision and other matters, so that they are able to assign what they will exclusively to whom they will? Or are they the ones in control?, [or] are they the mighty ones who hold sway? (the verb [from musaytirūna] is saytara, similar [in root form] to baytara, ‘to practice veterinary medicine’, or bayqara, ‘to corrupt’, ‘to ruin’).

Or do they have a ladder, a means of ascension into the heaven, whereby they eavesdrop?, that is, at the top of which [they listen in], on the conversations of the angels, so that they are then able to dispute with the Prophet, as they claim. If that is what they assert: Then let their eavesdropper, [let] the one claiming to be able to listen [in on their conversations] on top of this [ladder], produce a manifest warrant, a plain and evident proof. Now, on account of the similarity of this assertion to their assertion that the angels are the daughters of God, He, exalted be He, says:

Or does He have daughters, as you claim, whereas you have sons? Exalted be God above what you claim!

Or are you asking them for a fee, a wage in return for what you have brought them in the way of religion, so that they are weighed down with debt?, [with] the liability for this, so that they are unable to submit [to God].

Or do they have [access to] the Unseen, that is, the knowledge of it, so that they can write it down?, and are hence able to dispute with the Prophet (s) regarding the Resurrection and the matters relating to the Hereafter, as they claim.

Or do they desire to outmanoeuvre?, you and have you killed, at the Assembly Council. But those who disbelieve, they are the outmanoeuvred ones!, the vanquished and the ones destroyed. God preserved him from them and then destroyed them at Badr.

Or do they have a god other than God? Glory be to God [exalted is He] above any partners that they may ascribe!, to Him in the way of gods (the succession of interrogatives with am, ‘or’, are intended to express censure and rebuke).

And if they were to see a fragment, a portion, of the heaven falling, on them — as they say, Then make fragments of the heaven fall upon us [Q. 26:187], as a chastisement for them — they would say, this is: ‘A heap of clouds!’, piled on top of one another, that will bring us water; and so they do not believe.

So leave them until they encounter that day of theirs in which they will be thunderstruck, [in which] they will die;

the day when their guile will avail them nothing (yawma lā yughnī is a substitution for yawmahumu, ‘that day of theirs’) and they will not be helped, they will [not] be protected from the chastisement in the Hereafter.

And assuredly for those who do wrong, by their [persistence in] disbelief, there is a chastisement beyond that, in this world, before their death — thus they were punished with famine and drought for seven years, and with being killed on the day of Badr; but most of them do not know, that the chastisement will befall them.

And submit patiently to the judgement of your Lord, that they be reprieved, and do not be grieved, for surely you fare before Our eyes, [you are] in Our sight, We see you and preserve you. And glorify, continuously, with praise of your Lord, that is to say, say subhāna’Llāhi wa bi-hamdihi, ‘Glory, and praise, be to God!’, when you rise, from your sleeping-place or your sitting-place,

and glorify Him at night — also in actual [utterance] — and at the receding of the stars (idbāra is a verbal noun), that is to say, also glorify Him after these have set; or [it means] in the case of the former, perform the two evening prayers, and in the case of the latter, the two units (rak‘a) of the dawn prayer, or — it is said — the morning prayer.

By the Star — the constellation Pleiades (al-thurayya) — when it sets, [when] it disappears,

your companion, Muhammad (s), may God bless him and grant him peace, has neither gone astray, from the path of guidance, nor has he erred, nor has he engaged in error (al-ghayy is ignorance that results from a false belief);

nor does he, in regard to what he brings you, speak out of [his own] desire, [out of] the whims of his soul.

It is but a revelation that is revealed, to him,

it is, taught to him by, an angel, one of awesome power,

possessed of vigour, of strength and might (or [alternatively it, dhū mirratin, means] possessed of a beautiful appearance), namely, Gabriel, peace be upon him; and he stood upright, he settled,

when he was on the highest horizon, the horizon of the sun, that is to say, at the place from which it rises, in the form in which he [Gabriel] was created, so that the Prophet (s) saw him; he [the Prophet] had been at [Mount] Hirā’, where Gabriel had obscured the entire horizon to the west. The Prophet fell down swooning, after he had asked him [Gabriel] to show himself to him in the form in which he was created. Thus Gabriel had made a tryst with him at Hirā’, where he came down to him in human form.

Then he drew near, he came close to him, and drew closer still,

until he was, from him [the Prophet], within the length of two bows away or [even] nearer, than that, until he [the Prophet] had regained consciousness and his fright had subsided,

whereat He, [God] exalted be He, revealed to His servant, Gabriel, what he, Gabriel, revealed, to the Prophet (s); the thing being revealed is not mentioned [explicitly] in exaltation of its [great] status.

The heart, the heart of the Prophet, did not deny (read khadhaba or kadhdhaba) what he saw, with his own eyes of the image of Gabriel.

Will you then dispute with him, will you [then] argue with him and [hope to] overwhelm him, concerning what he saw? — an address to the idolaters who denied the Prophet’s (s) vision of Gabriel.

And verily he saw him, in his [true] image, another time,

by the Lote-tree of the Ultimate Boundary, when he was carried on the night journey [up] through the heavens — this [lote-tree] is a nabk thorn-tree [that lies] to the right of the Throne (‘arsh), [the tree] beyond which no angel or any other being pass;

near which is the Garden of the Retreat, to which the angels, the spirits of martyrs and the pious retreat;

when there shrouded the Lote-tree that which shrouded [it], of flying creatures and other [beings] (idh, ‘when’, is operated by ra’āhu, ‘he saw him’),

The eye did not swerve, on the part of the Prophet (s), nor did it go beyond [the bounds], that is to say, his gaze did not turn away from the object of vision designated for it, nor did it go beyond that [object] on that night.

Verily he saw, in it, some of the greatest signs of his Lord, [some of] the most awesome [of these signs]. He thus saw from among the marvels of the Realm (malakūt) a green drape (rafraf) that obscured the [entire] horizon of the heaven and Gabriel with his six hundred wings.

Have you considered al-Lāt and al-‘Uzzā,

and Manāt, the third, of the preceding two, the other? (al-ukhrā, a derogatory qualification of the third one). These were stone idols which the idolaters worshipped and which they claimed interceded for them with God (the first direct object of a-fa-ra’aytum, ‘have you seen’, is al-Lāt and what has been supplemented thereto; the second [direct object] has been omitted). The meaning then is, ‘Inform Me: do these idols have the power over anything, such that you worship them besides God Who has the power over all that has been mentioned?’ And because of their assertion also that the angels were God’s daughters, despite their aversion to daughters, the following was revealed:

Are you to have males, and He females?

That, then, would indeed be an unfair division! (dīzān, ‘unfair’, derives from dāzahu, yadīzuhu, to mean: ‘he wronged him’, ‘he was unjust to him’).

These, that is, the mentioned [deities], are nothing but names which you have named, by which you have named, you and your fathers, idols that you worship. God has not revealed any warrant, [any] proof or evidence, for them, that is to say, [for] the worship of them. They follow nothing but conjecture, in their worship of them, and that which [ignoble] souls desire, of that which Satan adorned for them, that they may intercede for them before God, exalted be He, even though guidance has already come to them from their Lord, by the tongue of the Prophet (s), with definitive proof; yet they do not desist from their ways.

Or shall man, that is, shall every human being among them, have whatever he wishes for?, such as [their wish] that the idols intercede for them. [No!] It is not so.

Yet to God belong the Hereafter and the former [life], that is to say, [the life of] the world, and so nothing comes to pass in them except what He, exalted, wills.

And how many an angel, that is to say, many an angel, there is in the heavens, and how honoured they are in God’s sight [but], whose intercession cannot avail in any way except after God gives permission, to them for this [intercession], for whomever He wills, of His servants, and, with whom, He is satisfied, because of His saying: and they do not intercede except for him with whom He is satisfied [Q. 21:28]. It is also well-known that it [intercession] cannot be forthcoming from them except after permission for it has been granted: who is there that shall intercede with Him save with His leave [Q. 2:255].

Truly those who do not believe in the Hereafter give the angels the names of females, for they say: ‘They are God’s daughters’.

But they do not have any knowledge thereof, of this claim. They follow, in this [respect], nothing but conjecture, which they have conjured up, and indeed conjecture can never substitute for the truth, that is to say, when it comes to acquiring knowledge of that which one is required to have knowledge of.

So shun him who turns away from Our Remembrance, that is, [from] the Qur’ān, and desires nothing but the life of this world — this was [revealed] before the command to struggle [against the disbelievers].

That, namely, the desire of this world, is the full extent of their knowledge, that is, the limit of their knowledge, namely, that they have preferred this life to [that of] the Hereafter. Truly your Lord knows best those who have strayed from His way, and He knows best those who are [rightly] guided: He has knowledge of both and will requite both.

And to God belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth, that is, He owns [all of] that, among which [also] are the misguided one and the [rightly] guided one, leading astray whomever He will and guiding whomever He will, that He may requite those who do evil for what they have done, by way of idolatry and otherwise, and reward those who are virtuous, by [their] affirmation of [God’s] Oneness and other acts of obedience, with the best [reward], namely, Paradise. He points out ‘the virtuous’ as being:

Those who avoid grave sins and abominations, excepting lesser offences, that is, minor sins, such as a look, a kiss or a touch (this constitutes a discontinuous exception, in other words the meaning is: but lesser offences are forgiven by the avoidance of grave sins). Truly your Lord is of vast forgiveness, for such [lesser sins] and for accepting repentance. The following was revealed regarding those who used to say, ‘[What of] our prayers, our fasting, and our pilgrimage!’. He knows you best [from the time] when He produced you from the earth, that is to say, [when] He created your father Adam from dust, and when you were hidden [fetuses] (ajinna is the plural of janīn) in the bellies of your mothers. So do not claim purity for yourselves, do not praise yourselves, that is, in admiration; but [if it is done] in recognition of [God’s] grace, then that is fine. He knows best those who are God-fearing.

Did you see him who turned away, from faith — that is, [the one who] recanted when he was derided for it. He said, ‘But I fear the punishment of God!’. But when the one deriding him guaranteed him that he would bear God’s chastisement for him, provided that he reverted to his [former] idolatry, and he then gave him a stated sum money, he reverted —

and gave a little, of the stated sum of money, and was then grudging?, refrained from [giving] the remainder (akdā derives from al-kudya, earth that is hard as rock and which prevents the well-digger from digging through when he hits it).

Does he possess knowledge of the Unseen so that he sees?, [and therefore] from among such [knowledge] he is able to know that another person may bear the chastisement of the Hereafter for him? No! This was al-Walīd b. al-Mughīra, or someone else (the sentence beginning with a-‘indahu, ‘does he possess’, is the second object of the a-ra’ayta, ‘have you seen’, which has the significance of ‘inform Me!’).

Or (am means bal) has he not been informed of what is in the scrolls of Moses, the books of the Torah, or scrolls before it,

and, the scrolls of, Abraham who fulfilled [his summons], [he who] completed what he had been charged with, as in: And when his Lord tested Abraham with certain words and he fulfilled them [Q. 2:124] (the explication of mā, ‘what’, is [the following]):

that no burdened soul shall bear the burden of another (an, ‘that’, has been softened in place of the hardened form), in other words, no soul shall bear [responsibility for] the sins of another;

and that (wa-an, to be understood as wa-annahu) man shall have only what he [himself] strives for, of good [deeds], and so he shall not have anything of [the reward for] good [deeds] striven for by another;

and that his endeavour will be seen, it will be inspected in the Hereafter,

then he will be rewarded for it with the fullest reward, the most perfect [reward] (one may say jazaytuhu sa‘yahu or [jazaytuhu] bi-sa‘yihi [to mean the same thing]),

and that (read wa-anna as a supplement; it is also read wa-inna as the beginning of a new sentence; and the same applies to what comes after it, in which case, according to this second [reading], these [inna statements] no longer form part of the content of all that is ‘in the scrolls’) the ultimate end, the return and the destination after death, is toward your Lord, whereat He will requite them;

and that it is He Who makes to laugh, whomever He will He makes joyous, and makes to weep, whomever He will He makes him sorrowful,

and that it is He Who brings death, in this world, and gives life, for resurrection,

and that He [Himself] creates the two spouses, the two kinds, the male and the female,

from a drop [of semen] once it is emitted, [once] it is poured forth into the womb,

and that with Him rests the second genesis (read al-nashā’ata, or al-nash’ata), the other creation, for the Resurrection, after the first creation,

and that it is He Who enriches, people by [granting them] sufficient wealth, and grants possessions, [He Who] gives that wealth that is enjoyed as property,

and that it is He Who is the Lord of Sirius — this is a star [lying] beyond [the constellation of] Gemini, which was worshipped in the time of pagandom (jāhiliyya);

and that He destroyed former ‘Ād (‘Ādan al-ūlā: a variant reading elides the nunation with the [following] lām [sc. ‘Āda’l-ūlā]; this [former one] refers to the people of ‘Ād, while the second [‘Ād] is that of the people of Sālih)

and Thamūd (wa-Thamūda: may be declined, as the name of their forefather, or left as a diptote, being the name of the tribe; it is a supplement to ‘Ādan) sparing not, a single one of them;

and the people of Noah before that, that is to say, before ‘Ād and Thamūd, We [also] destroyed them; indeed they were more unjust and more insolent, than ‘Ād and Thamūd, because of the long time that Noah remained among them: and he remained among them a thousand-less-fifty years [Q. 29:14], for they, despite their disbelief in him, would [still] harm him and assault him;

and the Deviant [cities], namely, the cities of the people of Lot, He overturned, He hurled them down to the earth after lifting them up to the heaven upside down, by commanding Gabriel to do this;

so that there covered them, of rocks afterwards, that which covered [them]: this is [purposely] left vague in order to inspire terror; in [sūrat] Hūd [it is stated]: We made their uppermost the nethermost, and We rained upon them stones of baked clay [Q. 11:82].

Then which of the bounties of your Lord, [which of] His graces, [graces] which indicate His Oneness and power, do you dispute?, do you have doubt about, O man, or deny?

This, Muhammad (s), is a warner, [in the tradition] of the warners of old, of their kind, that is to say, he is a messenger like messengers before him, sent to you just as they were sent to their peoples.

The Impending [Hour] is imminent: the Resurrection is near at hand.

None, [no] soul, besides God can disclose it, that is to say, only He can disclose it and manifest it, as where He says: He alone shall reveal it, at its proper time [Q. 7:187].

Do you then marvel, in denial, at this discourse, the Qur’ān,

and laugh, mockingly, and not weep, when you hear its Promise and Threat,

while you remain oblivious?, unmindful and heedless of what is required of you.

So prostrate to God, Who created you, and worship Him!, and do not prostrate to idols, nor worship them.

The Hour has drawn near, the Resurrection is close at hand, and the moon has split, it broke in two at [Mount] Abū Qubays and Qu‘ayqa‘ān, as a sign for the Prophet (s), for it had been demanded of him, and [when it took place] he said, ‘Bear witness [now]!’ — as reported by the two Shaykhs [al-Bukhārī and Muslim].

And if they, the disbelievers among Quraysh, see a sign, a miracle of the Prophet (s), they turn away and say, this is: ‘A powerful sorcery!’ (mustamirr, ‘powerful’, derives from al-mirra, meaning ‘strength’; or it [mustamirr] means ‘incessant’).

And they denied, the Prophet (s), and followed their own desires, as regards [their] falsehood; and every matter, that is good or evil, will be settled, with that person [who is responsible for it], either [by his ending up] in Paradise or in the Fire.

And verily there has come to them such tidings, stories about the destruction of communities which denied their messengers, as contain a deterrent, to them (muzdajar is a verbal noun, or a noun of place; the dāl [of muzdajar] replaces the tā’ of [the 8th form] ifta‘ala; one may say, izdajartuhu or zajartuhu, to mean ‘I forbade him sternly’; mā, ‘such as’, either indicates a relative clause, or it is qualified by an adjective);

wisdom (hikmatun is the predicate of an omitted subject, or a substitution for mā, ‘such as’, or for muzdajar, ‘deterrent’) [that is] far-reaching, complete; but warnings (nudhur is the plural of nadhīr, functioning in the [agent] sense of mundhir, ‘a warner’, that is to say, ‘those matters which warn them’; mā is either for negation, or it is an interrogative of denial, in which case it stands as a preceding direct object) are of no avail, [warnings] are of no use with them.

So turn away from them! (this is the import of the preceding statement and it completes what is being said). On the day when the Summoner, namely, Isrāfīl (yawma, ‘the day’, is rendered accusative by yakhrujūna, ‘they will emerge’, next [verse]), summons to an awful thing (read nukur or nukr, in the sense of munkar, ‘disagreeable’), [a thing] which the souls will find awful, and this is the Reckoning;

with their downcast (khāshi‘an: a variant reading has khushsha‘an), humiliated, looks (absāruhum is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject of the verb [yakhrujūna, ‘they will emerge’]) they, that is, mankind, will emerge from the graves as though they were scattered locusts, not knowing where to go, out of fear and perplexity (this sentence [ka’annahum jarādun muntashirun] is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject of [the verb] yakhrujūna, ‘they will emerge’, and so is His saying [muhti‘īna]),

scrambling, hastening with their necks stretched out, toward the Summoner. The disbelievers, among them, will say: ‘This is a hard day!’, a difficult one for disbelievers — as is stated in [sūrat] al-Muddaththir, a day of hardship for the disbelievers [Q. 74:9-10].

The people of Noah denied (kadhdhabat has feminine inflection on account of the import [referring to a feminine noun], qawm, ‘tribe’) before them, before Quraysh. Thus they denied Our servant, Noah, and said, ‘A madman!’, and he was reviled: they repulsed him with insults and in other ways.

And so he invoked his Lord, [saying,] ‘I have been (annī, to be understood as bi-annī) overcome, so help [me]!’

Then We opened (read fa-fatahnā or fa-fattahnā) the gates of the heaven with torrential waters, [waters] pouring down intensely,

and We made the earth burst forth with springs, that flowed forth, and the waters, the waters of the heaven and the earth, met for a purpose, a circumstance, that was preordained, [a matter] which had been decreed since pre-eternity, namely, their destruction by drowning.

And We bore him, that is, Noah, on one, a ship, [made] of planks and nails (dusur is what boards are fastened down with of nails and the like; the singular is disār, similar [in pattern] to [kutub] kitāb, ‘book’),

sailing before Our eyes, that is, in Our sights, in other words, [it was being] protected, as retaliation (jazā’an is in the accusative because of the implied verbal clause, that is to say, ‘they were drowned by way of revenge’) for [the sake of] him who was rejected, namely, Noah, peace be upon him (a variant reading [for passive kufira] has kafara, ‘him who disbelieved’, in other words, they were drowned as a punishment for them).

And verily We left it, We preserved this [deed], as a sign, for whomever might be admonished by it, in other words, the news of this [deed] became widely-known and endured. So is there anyone who will remember?, [anyone who] will take heed from, or be admonished by, it? (muddakir is actually mudhtakir, but the tā’ has been replaced with a dāl, likewise the dhāl, and it [the dāl] has been assimilated with it [the other dāl]).

How [dreadful] then were My chastisement and My warnings? (this is an interrogative meant as an affirmative; kayfa, ‘how’, is the predicate of kāna, ‘was’, and it is here being used to inquire about a ‘state’; the intention is to prompt those who are being addressed to affirm the fact that God’s chastisement of those who denied Noah was fully deserved).

And verily We have made the Qur’ān easy to remember, We have facilitated its memorisation and disposed it to serve as a [source of] remembrance. So is there anyone who remember?, [anyone who] will be admonished by it and memorise it? (the interrogative here is intended as an imperative: in other words, memorise it and be admonished by it; none of God’s scriptures is memorised by heart other than it [the Qur’ān]).

‘Ād denied, their prophet Hūd and so they were chastised. How then were My chastisement and My warnings?, [how then was] My warning them of the chastisement before it was sent down? In other words, it was justified, and He explains this [chastisement] by saying:

Indeed We unleashed upon them a clamorous wind, intensely noisy, on a day of prolonged ill fortune, (nahsin mustamirr means) either one of continuous ill fortune, or one of severe ill fortune — and this was the last Wednesday of the month —

tearing people away, wrenching them from the holes in the ground in which they had been embedded and flinging them down [to the ground] head first, thereby crushing their necks and severing [their] heads from [their] bodies, as if they were, [while lying] in this mentioned state, trunks of uprooted palm-trees, severed and thrown on the ground — they are likened to palm-trees because of their tallness (nakhlun, ‘palm-trees’, is masculine here but feminine in [sūrat] al-Hāqqa, nakhlun khāwiya, ‘fallen down [or hollow] palm-trees’, [Q. 69:7], in order to harmonise with the end-rhyme of the verses in both instances).

How then were My chastisement and My warnings?

And verily We have made the Qur’ān easy to remember. So is there anyone who will remember?

Thamūd denied the warnings (nudhur is the plural of nadhīr, with the sense of mundhir), that is to say, [they denied] those matters which their prophet Sālih warned them of if they refused to believe in him and to follow him,

and they said, ‘Is it a mortal (basharan is in the accusative because it is governed [by a succeeding verb]) alone among us (minnā wāhidan are both adjectives of basharan) that we are to follow? (nattabi‘uhu, this explains the verb which renders it [basharan, ‘mortal’] accusative; the interrogative is meant as a negative, in other words: why should we follow him when there are many of us and he is only one among us and not a king? That is to say, we will not follow him). Then indeed, if we were to follow him, we would be in error, a parting with reason, and insanity!

Has the Reminder, the revelation, been cast (read a-ulqiya pronouncing both hamzas, or by not pronouncing the second one but in both cases inserting an intervening alif, or leaving this [insertion] out) upon him [alone] from among us?, in other words, nothing has been revealed to him. Nay, but he is a conceited, an arrogant and insolent, liar, in his saying that the mentioned has been revealed to him. God, exalted be He, says:

‘They will know tomorrow, in the Hereafter, who is the conceited liar, and it is them, for they will be chastised for having denied their prophet Sālih.

Lo! We are sending the She-camel, We will bring it forth out of the mountain, the rock, as they demanded, as a trial, a test, for them, that We may try them. So watch them, O Sālih, await [to see] what they will do and what will be done with them, and remain patient (istabir: the tā’ here has replaced the tā’ of [the 8th form] ifta‘ala), in other words, endure their harm.

And inform them that the water is to be divided between them, and the She-camel: one day for them and the next for it, every drinking, [every] portion of water, will be attended’, by the people [drawing water] on their [designated] day, and by the She-camel on its day. They adhered to this [regime] but eventually became impatient with it and decided to slaughter the She-camel.

But they called their companion, Qudār, to slay it, so he took, he drew his sword, and he hamstrung, with it the She-camel, in other words, he slew her in compliance with their wish.

How then were My chastisement and My warnings?, My warning them of chastisement before it was sent down? In other words, it was justified. He explains it [their chastisement] by saying:

Indeed We unleashed upon them a single Cry, and they became like the chaff of a corral builder (al-muhtazir is one who makes a pen from dried tree-branches and thorns for his sheep, to protect them from wolves and beasts of prey; the fallen parts which they tread are called hashīm).

And verily We have made the Qur’ān easy to remember. So is there anyone who will remember?

The people of Lot denied the warnings, [they denied] those issues of which they were warned by his [Lot’s] tongue.

Indeed We unleashed upon them a squall of pebbles, a wind hurling at them pebbles, namely, small stones, a single one [of these] being no larger than the palm of the hand, and they were destroyed; [all] except the family of Lot, namely, his two daughters, together with him, whom We delivered at dawn, from among the dawns, the morning time of an unspecified day (had a specific day been meant [for that mentioned dawn], it [sahar] would have been treated as a diptote [instead of the declined form saharin], being a definite noun derived from al-sahar, for with definite nouns one ought to use [the preceding definite article] al). So was the squall unleashed at first with the family of Lot [still there]? There are two opinions regarding this: in the case of the former [that it was unleashed upon them including the family of Lot] the exception is understood as a continuous one, while in the case of the latter [opinion that they were delivered before the squall] the exception is understood as a discontinuous one, even if it [‘the family of Lot’] is actually subsumed by the collective noun [‘the people of Lot’, and so they were delivered] as a kindness [from God];

as a grace (ni‘matan is a verbal noun, that is to say in‘āman, ‘an act of grace’) from Us. So, like that requital, do We requite him who gives thanks, for Our graces and is a believer, or [it means] him who is a believer in God and His messenger and is obedient to both.

And verily he had warned them, Lot had threatened them, of Our strike, Our seizing them with chastisement, but they disputed, they contested and denied, the warnings, his warning.

And they had even solicited of him his guests, that he should let them have their own way with those who had come to him as guests, that they may do wicked things with them — and these [guests] were angels. So We blotted out their eyes, We blinded them and made them without slits [so that they were continuous folds of skin] like the rest of the face, by having Gabriel smack them with his wing. ‘So taste [now], so We said to them: taste, My chastisement and My warnings’, that is to say, [taste] the effects and the substance of My warning and My threat.

And verily there greeted them in the early morning, the morning time of an unspecified day, an abiding chastisement, a permanent [chastisement], continuous with the chastisement of the Hereafter.

‘So taste [now] My chastisement and My warnings!’

And verily We have made the Qur’ān easy to remember. So is there anyone who will remember?

And verily there came to Pharaoh’s folk, his people, together with him, the warnings, the warning by the tongue of Moses and Aaron, but they did not believe.

Rather: They denied Our signs, all, nine, of them, which were given to Moses. So We seized them, by way of chastisement, with the seizing of One [Who is] Mighty, Strong, Omnipotent, Powerful, Whom nothing can thwart.

Are your disbelievers, O Quraysh, better than those?, mentioned [beginning] from the people of Noah to those of Pharaoh, which is why they have not been chastised? Or have you, O disbelievers of Quraysh, [been granted] some immunity, from chastisement, in the Scriptures?, the Books? (the interrogative in both instances is meant as a denial, in other words: it is not so).

Or do they, the disbelievers of Quraysh, say: ‘We are a host that will be helped to victory’?, against Muhammad (s)? When Abū Jahl, on the day of Badr, said: ‘We are a host that will be helped to victory’, the following was revealed:

The host will [truly] be routed and turn its back [to flee], and so they were defeated at Badr and God’s Messenger (s) was granted victory over them.

Nay, but the Hour is their tryst, for chastisement, and the Hour, that is, the chastisement thereat, will be more calamitous, greater in affliction, and more bitter, than the chastisement of this world.

Indeed the guilty are in error, in the destruction of being killed in this world, and in a blazing fire, a fire that has been set ablaze (musa‘‘ara), that is, fiercely ignited in the Hereafter.

The day when they are dragged into the Fire on their faces, in the Hereafter and it is said to them: ‘Taste [now] the touch of Saqar’, Hell’s affliction of you.

Truly everything (read inna kulla shay’in is [in the accusative as a] dependent clause because of a verb governing it) have We created in a measure, by ordainment (bi-qadarin, ‘in a measure’, is a circumstantial qualifier referring to kulla, ‘every’, in other words, ‘[already] predetermined’; a variant reading [for kulla] has [nominative] kullu as the subject, the predicate of which is khalaqnāhu, ‘We have created’).

And Our command, for a thing which We want to bring into existence, is but a single word, like the twinkling of an eye, in terms of speed, and this is the saying of kun, ‘Be’, whereat it comes into existence. His command, when He wills a thing, is just to say to it ‘Be’, and it is [Q. 36:82].

And verily We have destroyed the likes of you, the likes of you in terms of disbelief, from among past communities. So is there anyone who will remember? (this is an interrogative meant as an imperative, that is to say, ‘Remember and be admonished!’).

And everything they, that is, servants, have done is, recorded, in the scrolls, the books of the Guardian Angels (al-hafaza),

and every small and great, sin, or deed, is inscribed, is recorded in the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfūz).

Assuredly the God-fearing will be amid gardens, orchards, and rivers (the collective noun is meant here; a variant reading [for nahar] has the plural nuhur, similar [in form] to asad, ‘lion’, [plural] usud), the meaning being that they will drink from its rivers water milk, honey and wine;

in an abode of truth, a place of truth, wherein there is no idle talk or cause for sin — (the collective noun [maq‘ad] is meant here; a variant reading has maqā‘id, ‘abodes’), in other words, they are in congregations in Paradise that are free from idle talk and cause for sin, in contrast to the congregations of this world, which are rarely free from such things (syntactically, this statement is considered a second predicate and also a substitution; it [the ‘abode’] may be understood as being ‘one of truth’ regardless of whether one reads the substitution as being of the part [for the whole] or otherwise); before a King (malīk: this form is hyperbolic, that is to say, One of a mighty and vast kingdom) [Who is] Omnipotent, Powerful, Whom nothing can thwart, namely, God, exalted be He (‘inda indicates [glorious] rank and closeness to His bounty, exalted be He).

The Compassionate One, God, exalted be He,

has taught, whomever He will, the Qur’ān.

He created man, the species [mankind],

teaching him the [coherent] speech, utterance.

The sun and the moon follow a reckoning, they move according to a [strict] calculation,

and the grass, all stalkless vegetation, and the trees, that [vegetation] which possesses stalk, prostrate, comply with what is required of them.

And He has raised the heaven and set up the balance, He has established justice,

[declaring] that you should not contravene, that is to say, so that you may not do wrong, with regard to the balance, that [instrument] with which one weighs.

And observe the weights with justice, fairly, and do not skimp the balance, [do not] decrease [the value of] what is being weighed.

And the earth, He placed it, He fixed it [in place], for [all] creatures: man, jinn and others.

In it are fruits and, the familiar, date-palms with sheaths, the spathes containing its flowers,

and grain, such as wheat and barley, with husk, and fragrant herb.

So which of your Lord’s favours, graces, will you deny? (tukadhdhibān is mentioned thirty one times; the interrogative is meant [to be understood] as an affirmative, judging by what al-Hākim [al-Naysābūrī] reported [by way of an isnād] from Jābir [b. ‘Abd Allāh al-Ansārī], who said, ‘The Messenger of God (s) was reciting surāt al-Rahmān to us, and when he completed it, he said, “What is wrong with you that you have been silent [throughout]? Verily the jinn are more responsive than you. Not once did I recite this verse to them — So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny? — but that they said, ‘Not one of your graces, our Lord, do we deny, for [all] praise belongs to You’ ”).

He created man, Adam, of dry clay (salsāl, a dry hollow mud producing an echo if tapped), resembling the potter’s (fakhkhār, clay that has been baked),

and He created the Jann, the father of the jinn, namely, Iblīs, of a smokeless flame of fire.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Lord of the two Easts, [the points of] the winter sunrise and the summer sunrise, and Lord of the two Wests: likewise [the two points of sunset].

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

He has loosed the two waters, the sweet and the salty; [and so] they meet, in the perception of the eye.

Between them there is a barrier, by His power, exalted be He. They do not overstep, neither of the two encroaches upon the other to become mixed with it.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

From [both of] them, from the point at which they [seem to] meet — but which is actually from [only] one of the two, and that is, the salt water — is brought forth (yukhraju, passive, may also be read as active, yakhruju, ‘emerge’) the pearl and the coral (marjān, these are red pieces of shell, or small pearls).

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

His are the crafted ships [that sail] in the sea [appearing] like landmarks, like mountains in their tremendous size and height.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Everyone who is on it, that is, [on] the earth, of animal beings, will perish (man, ‘who’, is used to indicate predominance of rational beings);

yet there will remain the countenance of your Lord, His Essence, [the countenance] of majesty, magnificence, and munificence, towards believers, through His graces to them.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

All that is in the heavens and the earth implore Him, either by way of speech or by their very state [of dependence on Him], for the strength which they require for worship, [for] provision, forgiveness and other things. Every day, [all the] time, He is upon some matter, something that He manifests in accordance with what He has decreed since pre-eternity, such as the giving of life, the bringing of death, exalting and abasing [individuals], giving abundantly and withholding, responding to a supplicating person and giving the one requesting [something] and so on and so forth.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

We will attend to you, We shall turn to reckon with you, O you two heavy ones!, mankind and jinn.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

O company of jinn and humans, if you are able to pass through, to exit from, the confines, the regions, of the heavens and the earth, then pass through! — a command [meant] to challenge them to what they are incapable of [doing]. You will not pass through except with a sanction, [except] with some power, and you have no power for such a thing.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Against you will be unleashed a heat of fire (shuwāz, can either mean that the flame thereof has no smoke or [that it does have it] with it) and a flash of brass, without any flame, and you will not be able to seek help, you will not be able to defend yourselves against this, nay, it will drive you to the site of the Gathering.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

And when the heaven is split open, when it becomes open with [many] gates [in preparation] for the descent of the angels, and it turns crimson (wardatan, [literally, ‘a rose’], in other words, red like this [rose]), like tanned leather, red skins, in contrast to its [the heaven’s] usual appearance (the response to idhā, ‘when’, is [along the lines of] fa-mā a‘zama’l-hawli, ‘How great will be the terror then!’).

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Thus on that day no man will be questioned about his sin, nor any jinn, about his sin; but they are questioned on some other occasion: By your Lord, We shall question them all [Q.15:92] (al-jānn in this instance and in what will follow denotes the jinn, and also in both cases al-ins denotes human beings).

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

The guilty will be recognised by their mark: blackened faces and bruised eyes; so they will be seized by the forelocks and the feet.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

‘This is Hell which the guilty [were wont to] deny!’

They shall pass round, they shall pace, between it and boiling hot water, [water] of extreme temperature, which they are given to drink every time they call to be rescued from the heat of the Fire (ānin is defective, like qādin).

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

But for those who feared, that is, for every one of them, or for all of them together, the station of their Lord, the standing before Him for the Reckoning and therefore refrained from being disobedient to Him, there will be two gardens.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Both with (dhawātā, the dual form of the regular form dhawāt, with its lām [its third consonant] is changed into a yā’) [abundant] branches (afnān is the plural of fanan, similar [in pattern] to talal [atlāl]).

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

In both of them there are two flowing springs.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

In both of them, of every fruit (fākiha) of [the fruits of] this world — or [it, fākiha, means] all those things in which one delights (yutafakkahu bihi) — there are two kinds, two varieties, one juicy, one dried, and those which in this world are bitter, like colocynth, will be sweet [therein].

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

[They will be] reclining (muttaki’īna is a circumstantial qualifier operated by an omitted [verb], that is to say, yatana‘‘amūna, they will enjoy bliss [while reclining]’) upon couches lined with [heavy] silk brocade, (istabraq) thick or coarse silk, the outer lining being of fine silk (sundus). And the fruits of both gardens will be near, so that it may be reached by the one standing up, the one sitting down or the one lying down.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

In them, in the two gardens and what they comprise of upper chambers and palaces, are maidens of restrained glances, [restricting] their eyes to those spouses of theirs from among [either] the men or the jinn who are reclining, [maidens] who have not been touched, [who] have not been deflowered — and these [maidens] are [either] houris or women of this world who [will] have been created [anew], by any man or jinn before them.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

It is as though they are rubies, in their purity, and pearls, in their fairness.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Is the reward of goodness, [manifested] through obedience, anything but goodness?, [granted] through bliss?

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

And beside these, two mentioned gardens, there will be two [other] gardens, in addition, for those who feared the standing before their Lord.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Deep green (mudhāmmatān, [this means that they are almost] black on account of the intensity of their greenness).

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

In both of them will be two gushing fountains, rushing with water, unceasing.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

In both of them will be fruits and date-palms and pomegranates, the [latter] two [fruits] being from among these [fruits of the two gardens]; but it is also said that they belong to [the fruits of] some other [garden].

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

In them, that is, in the two gardens and their palaces and what they comprise, are maidens [who are] good, in nature [and with], beautiful, faces.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Houris (hur, this means maidens with intense black eyes set against the [intense] whiteness [of the iris]) secluded, concealed, in pavilions, made of studded gems, annexed to the palaces, like boudoirs.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Untouched by any man before them, before these [soon-to-be] spouses of theirs, or jinn.

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Reclining, namely, their spouses (muttaki’īna, syntactically, it is as [described] above) upon green cushions (rafraf is the plural of rafrafa, which can mean [either] ‘carpets’ or ‘cushions’) and lovely druggets (‘abqariyyin, the plural of ‘abqariyya, which are velvet carpets).

So which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?

Blessed be the Name of your Lord, He of Majesty and Munificence (as [explained] above; the word ism is extra).

When the [imminent] Event comes to pass, [when] the Resurrection takes place,

there will be no denying its coming to pass, [there is] no soul to deny [it], by repudiating it as it did in this world,

[it will be] abasing [some], exalting [others], that is, it will manifest the abasing of some people by [virtue of] their admission into the Fire, and [manifest] the exalting of others by their admission into Paradise.

When the earth is shaken with a violent shock,

and the mountains are pulverised to [tiny] pieces,

so that they become a scattered dust (the second idh, ‘when’, is a substitution for the first idh),

and you will be, at the Resurrection, three kinds, categories:

Those of the right [hand], those who are given their record [of deeds] in their right hand (fa-ashābu’l-maymanati is the subject, the predicate of which is [the following mā ashābu’l-maymanati]) — what of those of the right [hand]? — a glorification of their status on account of their admittance into Paradise.

And those of the left [hand] (al-mash’ama means al-shimāl, ‘left’), each of whom is given his record [of deeds] in their left hands — what of those of the left [hand]? — an expression of contempt for their status on account of their admittance into the Fire.

And the foremost, in [the race to do] good, namely, the prophets (al-sābiqūna is a subject) the foremost: (this [repetition] is to emphasise their exalted status; the predicate [is the following, ūlā’ika’l-muqarrabūna])

they are the ones brought near [to God],

in the Gardens of Bliss,

a multitude from the former [generations] (thullatun mina’l-awwalīna, the subject), that is to say, a group of individuals from communities of old,

and a few from the later ones, from among the community of Muhammad (s), being the foremost from among the communities of old and this community (the predicate [is the following, ‘alā sururin mawdūnatin]),

[will be] upon encrusted couches, [their linings] woven onto rods of gold and jewels,

reclining on them, face to face (muttaki’īna ‘alayhā mutaqābilīna constitute two circumstantial qualifiers referring to the [subject] person of the predicate [‘they’]).

They will be waited on by immortal youths, resembling young boys, never ageing;

with goblets (akwāb are drinking-vessels without handles) and ewers (abārīq [are vessels that] have handles and spouts) and a cup (ka’s is the vessel for drinking wine) from a flowing spring, in other words, wine flowing from a spring that never runs out,

wherefrom they suffer no headache nor any stupefaction (read yanzafūna or yanzifūna, [respectively derived] from nazafa or anzafa al-shāribu, ‘the drinker became inebriated’), in other words, they do not get a headache from it nor do they lose their senses, in contrast to [the case with] the wine of this world;

and such fruits as they prefer,

and such flesh of fowls as they desire, for themselves to enjoy,

and houris, maidens with intensely black eyes [set] against the whiteness [of their irises], with wide eyes (‘īn: the ‘ayn here is inflected with a kasra instead of a damma because it [the kasra] better harmonises with the yā’; the singular is ‘aynā’, similar [in pattern] to hamrā’; a variant reading [for wa-hūrun ‘īn] has the genitive case wa-hūrin ‘īn)

resembling hidden, guarded, pearls,

a reward (jazā’an is an object denoting reason or a verbal noun, with the operator being an implicit [verb], in other words, ‘We have appointed for them the mentioned as a reward’ or ‘We have rewarded them [this]’) for what they used to do.

They will not hear therein, in Paradise, any vain talk, any lewd words, or any sinful words,

but only the saying, ‘Peace!’ ‘Peace!’ (salāman salāman substitutes for qīlan, ‘the saying’) which they will hear.

And those of the right [hand] — what of those of the right [hand]?

Amid thornless lote-trees, nabk trees,

and clustered plantains, banana trees, [weighed down] with its load [of fruit] from top to bottom,

and extended shade, [one that is] permanent,

and cascading water, running continuously,

and abundant fruit,

neither unavailable, during certain times, nor forbidden, because of [its] cost,

and mattresses [that are] raised, on top of couches.

Verily We have created them with an [unmediated] creation, namely, the wide-eyed houris, [We created them] without the process of birth,

and made them virgins, immaculate — every time their spouses enter them they find them virgins, nor is there any pain [of defloration] —

amorous (read ‘uruban or ‘urban, plural of ‘arūb, meaning ‘a woman passionately enamoured of her spouse’), of equal age (atrāb is the plural of tirb),

for those of the right [hand] (li-ashābi’l-yamīni is the relative clause of [either] ansha’nāhunna, ‘We have created them’, or ja‘alnāhunna, ‘[We] made them’), who are:

A multitude from the former [generations],

and a multitude of the later ones.

And those of the left [hand] — what of those of the left [hand]?

Amid a scorching wind, an infernal wind, permeating the pores of skins, and scalding water, water of extreme temperatures,

and the shade of pitch-black smoke,

neither cool, like all other shade, nor pleasant, [nor] agreeable in its appearance.

Indeed before that, in the world, they used to live at ease, enjoying [life’s] comforts, never wearying themselves with [an act of] obedience,

and they used to persist in the great sin, namely, idolatry.

And they used to say, ‘What! When we are dead and have become dust and bones, shall we indeed be resurrected? (in both instances [a-idhā and a-innā] the two hamzas may be read either by pronouncing them fully, or by not pronouncing the second, and in either case inserting an intervening alif).

What! And our forefathers too?’ (read a-wa-ābā’unā, [with the wa-] being for supplement, the hamza [a-] for the interrogative; here and in the previous instance, it is used to express ‘remoteness [of probability]’; a variant reading has aw-ābā’unā, as a supplement with aw, and that to which this is supplemented is the [syntactical] locus of inna and its subject).

Say: ‘Truly the former and the later [generations]

will be gathered for the tryst, the time, of a known day, that is, the Day of Resurrection.

Then indeed you, the erring, the deniers,

will assuredly eat from a Zaqqūm tree (min zaqqūm, the explication of shajar, ‘tree’),

and fill therewith, with the tree, your bellies,

and drink on top of that, the consumed Zaqqūm, boiling water,

drinking like the drinking (read sharba or shurba: verbal noun) of thirsty camels’ (hīm is the plural of masculine haymān and feminine haymā, similar [in pattern] to ‘atshān, ‘atshā, ‘thirsty’).

This will be the hospitality for them, what has been prepared for them, on the Day of Judgement, the Day of Resurrection.

We created you, We brought you into existence from nothing. Will you not then affirm [this] truth?, in resurrection? For the One able to create [from nothing] is also able to repeat [this creation].

Have you considered the sperm that you emit?, the sperm you spill in the wombs of women?

Is it you (a-antum: read by pronouncing both hamzas fully, or by replacing the second one with an alif or not pronouncing it, but inserting an alif between the one not pronounced and the other one, or without this [insertion] in the four instances [here and below]) who create it, that is, the sperm [making it] into a human being, or are We the Creators?

We have ordained (read qaddarnā or qadarnā) death among you, and We are not to be outmanoeuvred from, We are not incapable [of],

replacing [you with], [We are not incapable of] appointing, your likes, in your place, and making you, creating you, in what you do not know, in the way of forms, such as apes or swine.

For verily you have known the first creation (al-nashā’ata: a variant reading has al-nash’ata), why then will you not remember? (tadhakkarūna: the original second tā’ [of tatadhakkarūna] has been assimilated with the dhāl).

Have you considered what you sow?, [what] you stir of the earth to place seeds therein?

Is it you who make it grow, or are We the Grower?

If We will, We could surely turn it into chaff, dried vegetation producing no seed, and you would remain (zaltum is actually zaliltum, the lām having a kasra inflection; but it has been omitted to soften it), that is to say, you spend all day, bemused (tafakkahūna: one of the original tā’ [tatafakkahūna] letters has been omitted), surprised by this, and you would say:

‘We have indeed suffered loss!, [losing] what we expended on the cultivation.

Nay, but we are deprived!’, prevented from [reaping] our provision.

Have you considered the water you drink?

Is it you who cause it to come down from the [rain] clouds (muzn is the plural of muzna) or are We the Causer of its coming down?

If We willed, We could make it bitter, salty, undrinkable — why then will you not give thanks?

Have you considered the fire that you kindle?, [the fire] which you produce out of the [oil of] green trees?

Was it you who created the tree thereof, [trees] such as the markh, the ‘afār or the kalkh [‘fennel’], or were We the Creator?

We made it a reminder, of the fire of Hell, and a boon, a provision, for the desert-travellers (al-muqwīn derives from [the expression] aqwā al-qawmu, ‘they have reached al-qawā or al-qawā’, that is, al-qafr, ‘desolate land’, which is a wilderness (mafāza) that has neither vegetation nor water).

So glorify, exalt the transcendence [of], the Name (ism is extra) of your Lord, the Tremendous, God.

Nay, I swear (fa-lā uqsimu: lā is extra) by the setting-places of the stars!

And indeed it, the swearing by these [setting-places of stars], is a tremendous oath, if you only knew — if you were people of [deep] knowledge, you would realise the magnitude of this oath.

This, namely, what is being recited to you, is indeed a noble Qur’ān,

in a Book, inscribed, guarded, preserved, and this is the Mushaf;

which none touch (lā yamassuhu is a predicate functioning as a prohibitive command) except the purified, those who have purified themselves of ritual impurities, [56:80] a revelation, revealed, by the Lord of the Worlds.

Do you then belittle, [do you] take lightly and deny, this discourse?, the Qur’ān.

And for your livelihood, in the way of rain, that is to say, the thanks for it, you offer your denial?, of God’s granting it to you, by saying, ‘We have rain because of this [or that] storm’?

And for your livelihood, in the way of rain, that is to say, the thanks for it, you offer your denial?, of God’s granting it to you, by saying, ‘We have rain because of this [or that] storm’?

Why then, when it, the spirit, during the throes [of death], reaches the [dying person’s] throat (hulqūm is the passage for food)

and you are, O you attending the dying person, at that moment looking, at him —

and We are nearer to him than you are, to know [of his state], but you do not perceive (tubsirūna derives from al-basīra, ‘perception’) that is to say, you do not realise this —

why then, if you are not going to face a reckoning, [if] you are [not] going to be requited by your being resurrected, in other words, [why then, if] you are not going to be resurrected as you claim,

do you not bring it back, [why] do you not restore the spirit to the body after it has reached the throat, if you are truthful?, in what you claim (the second law-lā, ‘why … if’, is [repeated] to emphasise the first one; idhā, ‘when’, is an adverbial particle qualifying tarji‘ūna, ‘bring it back’, to which both conditions are semantically connected). The meaning is: ‘Why do you not bring it back, when, in repudiating resurrection, you are being truthful in this repudiation?’ That is to say, ‘Let death also be repudiated [as impossible] in its case just as [you claim that] resurrection is [impossible]’.

Thus if he, the dead person, be of those brought near,

then repose, that is, there will be for him relief, and a goodly provision, and a garden of Bliss (does this response belong to the ammā, ‘thus’, or to in, ‘if’, or to both? Different opinions [are given regarding this]).

And if he be of those of the right [hand],

then ‘Peace be to you’, that is, [then] for him there will be [peace by way of] security (salām) from chastisement, [a greeting] from those of the right [hand], [arising] from the fact that he is one of them.

But if he be of the deniers, the erring,

then a welcome of boiling water,

and a roasting in Hell-fire.

This indeed is the certain truth (haqqu’l-yaqīn: an example of an adjectivally qualified noun being annexed to its adjective).

So glorify the Name of your Lord, the Tremendous (as [explained] above [in verse 74]).

All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies God, that is to say, all things exalt Him as being transcendent (thus, the lām [of li’Llāhi] is extra; mā, ‘[all] that’, is used instead of min, ‘[all] who’, in order to indicate what is the predominant [sc. non-rational beings]); and He is the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Wise, in His actions.

To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth; He gives life, through [His act of] creation, and He brings death, thereafter, and He has power over all things.

He is the First, preceding everything [but] without [His] having any beginning, and the Last, succeeding everything [but] without [His] having any end, and the Manifest, through the proofs for Him, and the Hidden, from the perception of the senses, and He has knowledge of all things.

It is He Who created the heavens and the earth in six days, of the days of this world, the first of which being Sunday, and the last of which, Friday, then presided upon the Throne (‘arsh: [denotes] the kursī), a presiding [that was] befitting of Him. He knows what enters the earth, of rain and dead creatures, and what issues from it, of vegetation and minerals, and what comes down from the heaven, in the way of mercy and chastisement, and what ascends in it, of righteous deeds and evil ones. And He is with you, by [virtue of] His knowledge, wherever you may be; and God is Seer of what you do.

To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and to Him [all] matters, all existents, are returned.

He makes the night pass into, He makes it enter, the day, so that it increases while the night diminishes, and makes the day pass into the night, so that it increases while the day diminishes. And He is Knower of what is in the breasts, of what it contains of secrets and convictions.

Believe, adhere to belief, in God and His Messenger, and expend, in the way of God, out of that over which He has made you successors, out of the wealth of those mentioned [whom you have succeeded], for you will be succeeded in this [wealth] by those who will come after you: this was revealed at the time of the ‘hardship’ campaign, the campaign of Tabūk. For those of you who believe and expend — an allusion to ‘Uthmān [b. ‘Affān], may God be pleased with him — will have a great reward.

And why should you not believe — an address to the disbelievers — in other words, there is nothing to prevent you from believing, in God when the Messenger is calling you to believe in your Lord, and a pledge has been taken from you (reading [it as] ukhidha mīthāqukum; otherwise akhadha mīthāqakum, ‘He has taken a pledge from you’) concerning it — that is to say, God took this [pledge from you] in the world of atoms when He made them bear witness against themselves: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yea, indeed’ [Q. 7:172] — if you are believers?, that is to say, if your intention is to believe in Him, then apply yourselves to this [duty of faith].

It is He Who sends down upon His servant clear signs, the signs of the Qur’ān, that He may bring you forth from the darkness, [from] disbelief, to the light, [to] faith. For truly God is Kind, Merciful to you, in bringing you forth from disbelief to faith.

And why should you, after having embraced faith, not (allā: the nūn of an [an-lā] has been assimilated here with the lām of lā) expend in the way of God when to God belongs the heritage of the heavens and the earth, with all that they comprise, so that He will [eventually] receive all your wealth but without the reward for having expended [of it for His cause], as opposed to if you had expended and had hence been rewarded. Not equal [to the rest of you] are those of you who expended and fought before the victory, at Mecca. Such are greater in rank than those who expended and fought afterwards. Yet to each, of the two groups (a variant reading [for wa-kullan, ‘yet to each’] has nominative wa-kullun as a subject) God has promised the best reward, Paradise. And God is Aware of what you do, and will requite you for it [accordingly].

Who is it that will lend God, by expending his wealth in the way of God, a goodly loan, [goodly] by virtue of his expending it for God’s sake, so that He may multiply it (fa-yudā‘ifahu, may also be read fa-yuda‘‘ifahu) for him, from tenfold up to more than seven hundredfold —as stated in sūrat al-Baqara [Q. 2:261], and [so that] there may be for him, in addition to the multiplied [reward], a generous reward, coupled with satisfaction and prosperity.

Mention, the day when you will see the believing men and believing women with their light shining forth before them, in front of them, and, it will [also] be, on their right, and it will be said to them: ‘Good tidings for you on this day: Gardens, that is to say, enter them, underneath which rivers flow, wherein you will abide. That is the great success’.

The day when the hypocrites, men and women, will say to those who believe, ‘Look at us (unzurūnā: a variant reading has anzirūnā, meaning ‘Give us a chance’) that we may glean something of your light!’ It will be said, to them in mockery of them: ‘Step back and seek light!’ So they step back, then there will be set up between them, and the believers, a wall — this is said to be the wall of ‘the Heights’ [cf. Q. 7:46] — with a gate, the inner side of which contains mercy, the side of the believers, and the outer side of which, the side of the hypocrites, faces toward the chastisement.

They will call out to them, ‘Did we not use to be with you?’, upon [the path of] obedience. They will say, ‘Yes, indeed! But you caused your souls to fall into temptation, by [engaging in] hypocrisy, and you awaited, reversals of fortune for the believers, and you doubted, you were uncertain about the religion of Islam, and [false] hopes, greedy desires, deceived you until God’s ordinance, death, came; and the Deceiver, Satan, deceived you concerning God.

So on this day no ransom will be taken from you (read tu’khadhu or yu’khadhu) nor from those who disbelieved. Your abode will be the Fire: it will be your guardian, it is [the place truly] deserving of you, and an evil destination!’, it is.

Is it not time for those who believe — this was revealed concerning the matter of the Companions [of the Prophet] who had been overindulging in jest, that their hearts should be humbled to the remembrance of God and [to] what has been revealed (read as nuzzila; or read nazala, ‘[what] has come down’) of the truth, the Qur’ān, and that they should not be (lā yakūnū is a supplement to takhsha‘a, ‘be humbled’) like those who were given the Scripture before?, namely, the Jews and the Christians. For the stretch of time, the interval [extending] from them [back] to [the time of the sending of the last of] their prophets, was too long for them and so their hearts became hardened, unyielding to the remembrance of God, and many of them are immoral.

Know — an address to the believers [just] mentioned — that God revives the earth after its death, by [bringing forth] vegetation, and likewise He is able to do with your hearts, restoring them to humbleness. We have certainly made clear for you the signs, that testify to Our power with this [mentioned example] and others, that perhaps you may understand.

Indeed men who give voluntary alms (al-mussaddiqīna, derives from the [infinitive] al-tasadduq, ‘to give voluntary alms’; the tā’ [of the original mutasaddiqīna] has been assimilated with the sād) and women who give voluntary alms (a variant reading for both has the softened form [with a single sād, musaddiqīna and musaddiqāti], which derives from al-tasdīq, ‘to affirm the truth of’, ‘to believe in’) and [those of them] who have lent God a goodly loan (this refers back to both the men and women with [the masculine plural of] predominance; the supplementing of a verb [aqradū, ‘who lent’] to a noun [of action, al-mussaddiqāt] at [the point of] the relative clause of the al-, is because in that position it [the noun] functions as a verb; the mention of the ‘loan’ together with its qualification [‘goodly’] after [the mention of] ‘the giving of voluntary alms’ is intended to define it), it will be multiplied (yudā‘afu, is also read as yuda‘‘afu), namely, their loan [will multiplied], for them and they will have a generous reward.

And those who believe in God and His messengers — they are the truthful, (al-siddīqūna) those who go to the greatest lengths to be truthful, and the witnesses with their Lord, against the deniers of [all] communities; they will have their reward and their light. But those who disbelieve and deny Our signs, those [signs] that testify to [the truth of] Our Oneness — they will be the inhabitants of Hell-fire.

Know that the life of this world is merely play and diversion and glitter, the frequent adornment [of oneself], and mutual vainglory in respect of wealth and children, that is, preoccupation with such things — but as for acts of obedience and incentives thereto, these are the concerns of the Hereafter; as the likeness of, that is to say, it, in the manner in which you admire it and in the manner in which it will disappear, is as the likeness of, rain whose vegetation, which results from this [rain], the disbelievers, the sowers, admire; [but] then it withers, it becomes dried-up, and you see it turn yellow, then it becomes chaff, scatters vanishing with the winds. And in the Hereafter there is a severe chastisement, for those who prefer this world to it, and forgiveness from God and beatitude, for those who have not preferred this world to it; and the life of this world, that is to say, the comfort [enjoyed] in it, is but the comfort of delusion.

Vie with one another for forgiveness from your Lord and a garden the breadth of which is as the breadth of the heaven and the earth, if one were placed at the end of the other, prepared for those who believe in God and His messengers. That is the bounty of God, which He gives to whomever He will, and God is [dispenser] of tremendous bounty.

No affliction befalls in the earth, by way of drought [for example], or in yourselves, such as illness, or the loss of a child, but it is in a Book, meaning, the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfūz), before We bring it about, [before] We create it — the same is said [to be true] of [God’s] graces — that is indeed easy for God,

so that you may not (kay-lā: kay makes a verb subjunctive, with the same sense as an [as in an-lā, ‘so that … not’]), that is to say, God informs [you] of this so that you may not, grieve for what escapes you, nor exult, with a wanton exultation, rather an exultation that is [followed by] a thanksgiving for the grace, at what He has given you (read [thus] as ātākum; or read as atākum, meaning, ‘[at] what has come to you from Him’). For God does not like any swaggering braggart, [swaggering] in arrogance because of what he has been given, [boastful] of it to people;

such as are niggardly, in their duties, and bid people to be niggardly, in these [too]: against such there is a severe threat of chastisement. And whoever turns away, from what is his duty, still God, He is indeed (huwa, ‘He’, is a separating pronoun; a variant reading drops it) the Independent, [without need] of anyone other than Him, the Praiser, of His friends.

We have verily sent Our messengers, the angels, to prophets, with clear signs, with the definitive proofs, and We revealed with them the Scripture and the Balance, justice, so that mankind may uphold justice. And We sent down iron, We caused it to be extracted from mineral ores, wherein is great might, with which one may wage battle, and [many] uses for mankind, and so that God may know, a knowledge of direct vision (li-ya‘lama’Llāhu is a supplement to li-yaqūma’l-nāsu, ‘so that mankind may uphold’) those who help Him, by helping [to uphold] His religion through [the use of] instruments of war made of metal and otherwise, and His messengers through the Unseen (bi’l-ghaybi: a circumstantial qualifier referring to the [suffixed pronoun] hā’, ‘Him’, of yansuruhu, ‘[who] aid Him’), that is to say, while He [God] is not seen by them in this world. Ibn ‘Abbās said: ‘They help Him even though they do not see Him’ (yansurūnahu wa-lā yubsirūnahu). Assuredly God is Strong, Mighty, without any need of being helped, but such [help] benefits those who proffer it.

And verily We sent Noah and Abraham and We ordained among their seed prophethood and the Scripture, meaning the four Books: the Torah, the Gospel, the Psalms and the Furqān, all of which have been [revealed] among the seed of Abraham; and some of them are [rightly] guided, and many of them are immoral.

Then We sent to follow in their footsteps Our messengers, and We sent to follow, Jesus son of Mary, and We gave him the Gospel, and We placed in the hearts of those who followed him kindness and mercy. But [as for] monasticism, namely, abstention from women and seclusion in monasteries, they invented it, [an innovation] on their part — We had not prescribed it for them, We did not enjoin them to it; but they took it on — only seeking God’s beatitude. Yet they did not observe it with due observance, for many of them abandoned it and rejected the religion of Jesus and embraced the religion of their [then] king. However, many of them did remain upon the religion of Jesus and they believed in our Prophet [when he came]. So We gave those of them who believed, in him, their reward; but many of them are immoral.

O you who believe, in Jesus, fear God and believe in His Messenger, Muhammad (s), and Jesus, and He will give you a twofold portion, share, of His mercy, for your belief in both prophets; and He will assign for you a light by which you will walk, across the Path [over Hell and into Paradise], and forgive you; for God is Forgiving, Merciful;

So that the People of the Scripture, the Torah — those who did not believe in Muhammad (s) — may know, in other words, I inform you of this so that they [the People of the Scripture] may know, that (a [of a-llā] is softened in place of the hardened form [an-lā], its subject being the pronoun of the matter, that is to say, [understand it as being] annahum) they have no power over anything of God’s bounty, contrary to their claims that they are God’s beloved and those who deserve His beatitude, and that [all] bounty is in God’s hand; He gives it to whomever He will, and hence He has given the believers [in the Prophet] among them their reward twofold, as stated above; and God is [dispenser] of tremendous bounty.

God has certainly heard the words of her who disputes with you, [her who] consults you, O Prophet, concerning her husband, who has repudiated her by zihār — he had said to her, ‘You are to me [as untouchable] as the back of my mother’. She asked the Prophet (s) about this and he told her that she was [thenceforth] forbidden to him, as was customary among them [at the time of Jāhiliyya], namely, that repudiation by zihār results in permanent separation. She was Khawla bt. Tha‘laba and he was Aws b. al-Sāmit — and complains to God, of her being alone and of her impoverishment while having young children, whom if she were to leave with him, they would go astray, but whom, if they remained with her, would go hungry. And God hears your conversation, your consulting. Assuredly God is Hearer, Seer, [He is] Knower.

Those of you who repudiate their wives by zihār (yazzahharūna is actually yatazahharūna, in which the tā’ has been assimilated with the zā’; a variant reading has yazzāharūna, and still another has yuzāhirūna, similar [in form] to yuqātilūna; the same applies for the second instance [of this verb below]), they are not their mothers; their mothers are only those who (read allā’ī, or without the [final long] yā’, allā’i) gave birth to them, and indeed they, [in repudiating them] by zihār, utter indecent words and a calumny, a lie. Yet assuredly God is Pardoning, Forgiving, to the one who repudiates by zihār through an atonement [which he must offer].

And those who repudiate their wives by zihār and then go back on what they have said, instead doing the opposite of this and retaining the woman divorced by zihār, that which is contrary to the purpose of zihār in which a woman is characterised as being forbidden — then [the penalty for them is] the setting free of a slave, an obligation upon him, before they touch one another, in sexual intercourse. By this you are being admonished; and God is Aware of what you do.

And he who cannot find [the wherewithal], [to set free] a slave, then [his redemption shall be] the fasting of two successive months before they touch one another. And if he is unable, to fast, then [the redemption shall be] the feeding of sixty needy persons, as an obligation upon him, that is, before they touch one another: understanding the unrestricted [prescription] as [having the same restriction as] the restricted one. For every needy person [he should give] one mudd measure of the principal food of the town. This, namely, lightening of the atonement is, so that you may believe in God and His Messenger. And these, namely, the rulings mentioned, are God’s bounds; and for the rejecters, of them, there is a painful chastisement.

Indeed those who oppose God and His Messenger will be abased, humiliated, just as those before them were abased, for opposing their messengers. And verily We have revealed clear signs, indicating the truthfulness of the Messenger, and for those who disbelieve, in the signs, there is a humiliating chastisement.

The day when God will raise them all together, He will then inform them of what they did. God has kept count of it, while they forgot it. And God is Witness to all things.

Have you not seen, [have you not] realised, that God knows all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth? Not secret conversation of three takes place but He is their fourth [companion], by [virtue of] His omniscience, nor of five but He is their sixth, nor of fewer than that or more but He is with them wherever they may be. Then He will inform them of what they did, on the Day of Resurrection. Assuredly God has knowledge of all things.

Have you not seen, [have you not] observed, those who were forbidden from conversing in secret [but] then returned to that they had been forbidden, and [all the while] hold secret conversations [tainted] with sin and [plans for] enmity and disobedience to the Messenger? These were the Jews, whom the Prophet (s) had forbidden them what they used to do in their secret talks, that is, their [habit of] conversing secretly with one another and giving the believers looks in order to cast doubt into their hearts [about the faith]. And [who] when they come to you, they greet you, O Prophet, with that with which God never greeted you — namely, their saying [to the Prophet]: al-sāmu ‘alayka, meaning, ‘Death [be upon you]’, and they say within themselves, ‘Why does God not chastise us for what we say?’, in the way of such a greeting and [our saying] that he is not a prophet, if he [truly] were a prophet. Hell will suffice them! In it they will be made to burn — and [what] an evil journey’s end!, it is.

O you who believe, if you do talk in secret, then do not talk in secret sinfully and in enmity and disobedience to the Messenger, but talk secretly in piety and fear of God. And fear God to Whom you will be gathered.

Secret conversations, [tainted] with sin and the like, are of [the work of] Satan, [a result] of his deception, that those who believe may end up grieving; but he cannot harm them in any way, except God’s leave, that is, [except by] His will. And in God let the believers put [all] their trust.

O you who believe, when it is said to you, ‘Make room’ during the assembly, during the assembly [convened] with the Prophet (s) or for remembrance, so that those arriving to [join] you may [find room to] sit (al-majlis, ‘assembly’, may also be read [in the plural] al-majālis) then make room; God will make room for you, in Paradise. And when it is said, ‘Rise up’, stand up for prayer or for other good deeds, do rise up (a variant reading [for unshuzū fa’nshuzū] has anshizū in both instances [sc. anshizū fa’nshizū]); God will raise those of you who have faith, [thereby] obeying this [command], and, He will raise, those who have been given knowledge by degrees, in Paradise. And God is Aware of what you do.

O you who believe, when you converse in secret with the Messenger, when you wish to converse with him privately, offer some voluntary alms before your secret talk. That is better for you and purer, for your sins. But if you find nothing, to offer as alms, then God is indeed Forgiving, of your secret conversation, Merciful, to you. In other words: nothing will be held against you for holding a secret conversation without having offered some voluntary alms [beforehand]. However, He [God] abrogated this later by saying:

Do you fear (read a-ashfaqtum, either pronouncing both hamzas fully, or by replacing the second one with an alif, or not pronouncing it, but inserting an alif between the one not unpronounced and the other one, or without [this insertion]), poverty [when you fear], to offer [voluntary] alms before your secret talks. So, as you did not do this, giving of voluntary alms, and God relented to you, waiving this [requirement] for you, maintain prayer and pay the alms and obey God and His Messenger, that is to say, observe these [duties] regularly. For God is Aware of what you do.

Have you not regarded, [have you not] seen, those who — these being the hypocrites — fraternise with a folk — these being the Jews — at whom God is wrathful? They, the hypocrites, neither belong with you, the believers, nor with them, the Jews, but are suspended in between, and they swear falsely, in other words, saying that they are believers, while they know, that they are lying in this.

God has prepared for them a severe chastisement. Evil indeed is that which they [are wont to] do, in the way of acts of disobedience.

They have taken their oaths as a shield, a [means of] protection for themselves and their possessions, and so they bar, thereby the believers, from the way of God, that is, from engaging in a struggle against them, thereby slaying them and seizing their possessions. So for them there will be a humiliating chastisement.

Neither their possessions nor their children will avail them in any way against God, against His chastisement. Those — they are the inhabitants of the Fire, wherein they will abide.

Mention, the day when God will raise them all together, whereupon they will swear to Him, that they are believers, just as they swear to you [now], and suppose that they are [standing] on something, beneficial by swearing in Hereafter just as [they supposed it to have been beneficial for them] in this world. Yet assuredly it is they who are the liars!

Satan has prevailed upon them, by their obedience of him, and so he has caused them to forget the remembrance of God. Those are Satan’s confederates, his followers. Yet it is indeed Satan’s confederates who are the losers!

Indeed those who oppose God and His Messenger — they will be among the most abased, the vanquished.

God has inscribed, in the Preserved Tablet, or [it means] He has decreed: ‘I shall assuredly prevail, I and My messengers’, by means of definitive proof or the sword. Truly God is Strong, Mighty.

You will not find a people who believe in God and the Last Day loving, befriending, those who oppose God and His Messenger, even though they, the opposers, were their fathers, that is to say, the believers’ [fathers], or their sons or their brothers or their clan, rather [you will find that] they intend to do them harm and they fight them over [the question of] faith, as occurred on one occasion with some Companions, may God be pleased with them. [For] those, the ones who are not loving of them, He has inscribed, He has established, faith upon their hearts and reinforced them with a spirit, a light, from Him, exalted be He, and He will admit them into gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they will abide, God being pleased with them, for their obedience of Him, and they being pleased with Him, because of His reward. Those [they] are God’s confederates, following His command and refraining from what He has forbidden. Assuredly it is God’s confederates who are the successful, the winners.

All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifies God, that is to say, [all that is in them] exalts Him as being transcendent (the lām [of li’Llāhi, ‘God’] is extra; the use of mā [instead of the personal min] is meant to indicate a predominance [of non-rational beings in the heavens and the earth]). And He is the Mighty, the Wise, in His kingdom and [in] His actions [respectively].

It is He Who expelled those who disbelieved of the People of the Scripture, namely, the Jews of the Banū al-Nadīr, from their homelands, [from] their dwellings at Medina, at the first exile, that is, their exile to Syria, the last [exile] being their banishment to Khaybar by ‘Umar during his caliphate. You did not think, O believers, that they would go forth, and they thought that they would be protected (māni‘atuhum is the predicate of an, ‘that’) by their fortresses (husūnuhum, the agent of the verb [māni‘atuhum], with which the predication is completed) from God, from His chastisement. But God, His command and His chastisement, came at them from whence they had not reckoned, [from whence] had never occurred to them, from the part of the believers, and He cast terror (ru‘b or ru‘ub) into their hearts, by having their chief Ka‘b b. al-Ashraf slain, destroying [as they did] (read yukharribūna; or yukhribūna, [derived] from [4th form] akhraba) their houses, in order to take away with them what they valued of wood and so on, with their own hands and the hands of the believers. So take heed, O you who have eyes!

And had God not prescribed, [had He not] decreed, banishment for them, departure from their homeland, He would have chastised them in this world, by having them killed or taken captive, as He did with the Jews of [Banū] Qurayza, and in the Hereafter there is for them the chastisement of the Fire.

That is because they defied, they opposed, God and His Messenger; and whoever defies God, indeed God is severe in retribution, against him.

Whatever palm-trees you cut down, O Muslims, or left standing on their roots, it was by God’s leave: He gave you the choice in this matter, and in order that, by giving [you] leave to cut them down, He might disgrace those who are immoral, the Jews, in return for their objection that the cutting down of productive trees was [deliberate] spoiling [of the land].

And whatever spoils God has given to His Messenger from these, you did not, O Muslims, spur for it any (min is extra) horses or camels, that is to say, you did not suffer any hardship in [securing] it, but God gives His messengers sway over whomever He will, and God has power over all things: hence you have no right to any of this [booty], rather it is exclusively for the Prophet (s) and those of the four categories mentioned with him in the next verse, [to be dispensed] in accordance with the way in which he used to divide it up, such that each would receive a fifth of the fifth and the rest being the Prophet’s (s), for him to do with as he pleases — thus he gave of it to the Emigrants and three from among the Helpers, on account of their poverty.

Whatever spoils God has given to His Messenger from the people of the towns, such as al-Safrā’, Wādī al-Qurā and Yanbu‘, belong to God, dispensing with it as He will, and to the Messenger and to the near of kin, the Prophet’s kin, from among the Banū Hāshim and the Banū al-Muttālib, and the orphans, the [orphaned] children of Muslims, those whose parents have died and who are impoverished, and the needy, those Muslims in need, and the traveller, the Muslim who may be cut off [from all resources] on a remote journey: in other words, they [these spoils] are the due of the Prophet (s) and [those of] the four categories, divided up in the way that he used to, where each category received a fifth of the fifth, with the rest being his [the Prophet’s], so that these, the spoils — this being the justification for the division of these [spoils] in this way, do not (kay-lā: kay functions like lā with a following implied an [sc. an-lā]) become a thing circulating, handed round, between the rich among you. And whatever the Messenger gives you, of spoils or otherwise, take it; and whatever he forbids you, abstain [from it]. And fear God. Surely God is severe in retribution.

[At] the poor Emigrants (li’l-fuqarā’i is semantically connected to an omitted [verb], that is to say, a-‘ajibū, ‘What! Do they marvel [at the poor Emigrants]’) who have been driven away from their homes and their possessions that they should seek bounty from God and beatitude and help God and His Messenger? Those — they are the sincere, in their faith.

And those who had settled in the hometown, that is, Medina, and [had abided] in faith, that is to say, [those who] had embraced it with enthusiasm — these being the Helpers, before them, love those who have emigrated to them, and do not find in their breasts any need, any envy, of that which those [others] have been given, that is to say, of what the Prophet (s) had given the Emigrants from the [seized] possessions of the Banū al-Nadīr, [a share which was] exclusively theirs; but prefer [others] to themselves, though they be in poverty, in need of that which they prefer for [those] others [to have]. And whoever is saved from the avarice of his own soul, its covetousness for [acquiring] possessions, those — they are the successful.

And those who will come after them, after the Emigrants and the Helpers, up to the Day of Resurrection, say, ‘Our Lord, forgive us and our brethren who preceded us in [embracing] the faith, and do not place any rancour, any spite, in our hearts toward those who believe. Our Lord, You are indeed Kind, Merciful!’.

Have you not considered, [have you not] seen, the hypocrites who say to their brethren who disbelieve from among the People of the Scripture, namely, the Banū al-Nadīr, their brethren in disbelief, ‘If (la-in: the lām is for oaths in all four instances) you are expelled, from Medina, we will assuredly go forth with you, and we will never obey anyone against you, to forsake you. And if you are fought against (wa-in qūtiltum: the prefatory lām [of la-in] has been omitted), we will certainly help you’. And God bears witness that they are truly liars.

[For] indeed if they are expelled, they would not go forth with them, and if they are fought against, they would not help them. And even if they were to help them, that is to say, even if they came to help them, they would surely turn their backs [to flee] (the implied response to the oath suffices in place of the response to the conditional, in all five instances) — then they, the Jews, would not be helped.

You indeed arouse greater awe, fear, in their hearts, that is, [the hearts of] the hypocrites, than God — [but only] because He has deferred His chastisement [to the Hereafter]. That is because they are a people who do not comprehend.

They, that is, the Jews, will not fight against you together, [all] in a [single] body, except in fortified towns or from behind some wall (jidār: a variant reading has [plural] judur, ‘walls’), some [kind of protective] fence. Their might, their belligerence, is great among themselves. You [would] suppose them to be all together, united as a [single] body, but their hearts are disunited, scattered, contrary to supposition. That is because they are a people who have no sense;

their likeness in relinquishing faith is, as the likeness of those who, recently before them, a short time before — these being the idolaters from among those [who fought] at Badr — tasted the evil consequences of their conduct, the punishment for it in this world, by being killed or otherwise. And for them there will be a painful chastisement, in the Hereafter.

In addition, their likeness in heeding the [words of the] hypocrites and their forsaking of them is, like Satan when he says to man, ‘Disbelieve!’; so that when he [man] disbelieves, he says, ‘Lo! I am absolved of you. Indeed I fear God, the Lord of the Worlds’, out of mendacity and dissimulation on his part.

So the sequel for both will be, that is, [the sequel for both] the one who leads astray and the one led astray (a variant reading for [‘āqibatahumā] has the nominative ‘āqibatuhumā, as the subject of kāna, ‘will be’), that they are in the Fire, therein abiding. And that is the requital of the evildoers, that is, the disbelievers.

O you who believe, fear God and let every soul consider what it has sent ahead for tomorrow, for the Day of Resurrection. And fear God. God is indeed Aware of what you do.

And do not be like those who forget God, [those who] neglect obedience to Him, so that He makes them forget their own souls, [to forget] to send ahead good deeds for its sake. Those — they are the immoral.

Not equal are the inhabitants of the Fire and the inhabitants of Paradise. It is the inhabitants of Paradise who are the winners.

Had We sent down this Qur’ān upon a mountain, and had it [the mountain] been endowed with a faculty of discernment like man, you would have surely seen it humbled, rent asunder by the fear of God. And such similitudes, as those mentioned — do We strike for mankind, that perhaps they may reflect, and so become believers.

He is God, than Whom there is no other god, Knower of the unseen and the visible, what is secret and what is proclaimed — He is the Compassionate, the Merciful.

He is God, than Whom there is no other god, the King, the Holy, the One sanctified from what does not befit Him, the Peace, unblemished by any defects, the Securer, the One Who confirms the sincerity of His messengers by creating miracles for them, the Guardian (al-muhaymin: [derives] from haymana, yuhayminu, meaning that one is watcher over something), in other words, the One Who is Witness to the deeds of His servants, the Mighty, the Strong, the Compeller, compelling His creatures to what He will, the Exalted, above what does not befit Him. Glorified be God — He is declaring His transcendence — above what partners they ascribe!, to Him.

He is God, the Creator, the Maker, the Originator from nothing, the Shaper. To Him belong the, ninety nine, Most Beautiful Names, cited in hadīth (al-husnā is the feminine of al-ahsan). All that is in the heavens and the earth glorify Him, and He is the Mighty, the Wise — already explained at the beginning of this [sūra].

O you who believe, do not take My enemy and your enemy, namely, the disbelievers of Mecca, for friends. You offer, you communicate to, them, the Prophet’s plan (s) to attack them, which he had confided to you, and had kept secret, at Hunayn, [communicating this to them out of], affection, between you and them. Hātib b. Abī Balta‘a sent them a letter to that effect, on account of his having children and close relatives, idolaters, among them. The Prophet (s) intercepted it from the person to whom he [Hātib] had given it to deliver, after God apprised him of this. Hātib’s excuse for this [conduct of his] was accepted [by the Prophet]; when verily they have disbelieved in the truth that has come to you, that is, [in] the religion of Islam and the Qur’ān, expelling the Messenger and you, from Mecca, by oppressing you, because you believe in God, your Lord. If you have gone forth to struggle in My way and to seek My pleasure … (the response to the conditional is indicated by what preceded, that is to say, [understand it as being] ‘then do not take them as friends’). You secretly harbour affection for them, when I know well what you hide and what you proclaim. And whoever among you does that, that is, to secretly communicate the Prophet’s news to them, has verily strayed from the right way, he has missed the path of guidance (originally, al-sawā’ means ‘the middle [way]’).

If they were to prevail over you, they would be your enemies, and would stretch out against you their hands, to kill and assault you, and their tongues with evil [intent], with insults and reviling; and they long for you to disbelieve.

Your relatives and your children, the idolatrous [ones], for whose sake you secretly communicated the news, will not avail you, against the chastisement in the Hereafter. On the Day of Resurrection you will be separated (passive yufsalu; or read active yafsilu, ‘He will separate you’) from them, so that you will be in Paradise, while they will be alongside the disbelievers in the Fire. And God is Seer of what you do.

Verily there is for you a good example (read iswa or uswa in both instances, meaning qudwa) in [the person of] Abraham, in terms of [his] sayings and deeds, and those who were with him, of believers, when they said to their people, ‘We are indeed innocent of you (bura’ā’ is the plural of barī’, similar [in form] to zarīf, ‘charming’) and of what you worship besides God. We repudiate you, we disavow you, and between us and you there has arisen enmity and hate forever (wa’l-baghdā’u abadan: pronounce both hamzas fully, or replace the second one with a wāw) until you [come to] believe in God alone’, except for Abraham’s saying to his father, ‘I shall ask forgiveness for you — [this statement is] excepted from ‘a [good] example’, so it is not [right] for you to follow his example in this [respect] by asking forgiveness for disbelievers. As for his saying: but I cannot avail you anything against God’ — that is, either against His chastisement or [to secure for you of] His reward — he [Abraham] is using it to intimate [to his father] that he can do nothing for him other than to ask forgiveness [for him], which [saying] is itself based on that [former statement] albeit excepted [from it] in terms of what is meant by it, even if on the face of it, it would seem to be [semantically] part of the [good] example to be followed: Say, ‘Who can avail you anything against God’ [Q. 48:11]; his [Abraham’s] plea of forgiveness for him was before it became evident to him that he [his father] was an enemy of God, as mentioned in sūrat Barā’a [Q. 9:114]. ‘Our Lord, in You we put our trust, and to You we turn [penitently], and to You is the journeying: these are the words of the Friend [of God, Abraham] and those who were with him, in other words, they were saying:

Our Lord, do not make us a cause of beguilement for those who disbelieve, that is to say, do not make them prevail over us, lest they think that they are following the truth and are beguiled as a result, in other words, [lest] they lose their reason because of us; and forgive us. Our Lord, You are indeed the Mighty, the Wise’, in Your kingdom and Your actions.

Verily there is for you, O community of Muhammad (s) (laqad kāna lakum is the response to an implied oath) in them a good example, for those [of you] who (li-man kāna is an inclusive substitution for –kum [of lakum, ‘for you’] with the same preposition [li-] repeated) anticipate God and the Last Day, that is, [for those] who fear these two, or who expect reward or punishment. And whoever turns away, by befriending the disbelievers, [should know that] God is the Independent, [without need] of His creatures, the Worthy of Praise, to those who obey Him.

It may be that God will bring about between you and those of them with whom you are at enmity, from among the disbelievers of Mecca out of [your] obedience to God, exalted be He, affection, by His guiding them to faith, so that they then become your friends. For God is Powerful, [able] to do that — and He did do this after the conquest of Mecca — and God is Forgiving, to them of their past [deeds], Merciful, to them [also].

God does not forbid you in regard to those who did not wage war against you, from among the disbelievers, on account of religion and did not expel you from your homes, that you should treat them kindly (an tabarrūhum is an inclusive substitution for alladhīna, ‘those who’) and deal with them justly: this was [revealed] before the command to struggle against them. Assuredly God loves the just.

God only forbids you in regard to those who waged war against you on account of religion and expelled you from your homes and supported [others] in your expulsion, that you should make friends with them (an tawallawhum is an inclusive substitution for alladhīna, ‘those who’). And whoever makes friends with them, those — they are the wrongdoers.

O you who believe, when believing women come to you, [saying] with their tongues [that they are], emigrating, from the [company of] disbelievers — [this was] following the truce concluded with them [the disbelievers] at al-Hudaybiyya to the effect that if any of their number should go to [join] the believers, that person should be sent back — test them, by making them swear that they had only gone forth [from Mecca] because of their [sincere] wish to embrace Islam, and not out of some hatred for their disbelieving husbands, nor because they might be enamoured by some Muslim man: that was how the Prophet (s) used to take from them their oaths. God knows best [the state of] their faith. Then, if you know them, if you suppose them, on the basis of their oaths, to be believers, do not send them back to the disbelievers. They [the women] are not lawful for them, nor are they [the disbelievers] lawful for them. And give them, that is to say, their disbelieving husbands, what they have expended, on them [on such women], in the way of dowries. And you would not be at fault if you marry them, on that [previous] condition, when you have given them their dowries. And do not hold on (read tumassikū or tumsikū) to the [conjugal] ties of disbelieving women, your wives, for your Islam automatically prohibits you from this, or [to the ties of] those apostatising women who return to the idolaters, for [likewise] their apostatising automatically prohibits you from marrying them, and ask for, demand, [the return of] what you have expended, on these women, of dowries, in the event of apostasy, from those disbelievers to whom they are married. And let them ask for what they have expended, on those women who have emigrated, as explained above, that it may be repaid to them. That is God’s judgement. He judges between you, therewith, and God is Knower, Wise.

And if you lose any of your wives, that is to say, [if you lose] one or more of them — or [it means if you lose] anything of their dowries — by [their] going, to the disbelievers, as apostates, and so you retaliate, you embark upon a raid and capture spoils [from them], then give those whose wives have gone, from the spoils, the like of what they have expended, for their having lost it to the disbelievers. And fear God in Whom you believe. And indeed the believers did what they had been commanded to do in the way of paying [back] the disbelievers [the dowries of their former wives] and the believers [the dowries of the women who had apostatised]. Afterwards, however, this stipulation was annulled.

O Prophet, if believing women come to you, pledging allegiance to you that they will not ascribe anything as partner to God, and that they will not steal, nor commit adultery, nor slay their children, as used to be done during the time of pagandom (jāhiliyya), when they would bury new-born girls alive, fearing ignominy and impoverishment, nor bring any lie that they have invented [originating] between their hands and their legs, that is, [by bringing] a foundling which they then [falsely] ascribe to the husband — it [the lie] is described in terms of a real child, because when a woman gives birth to a child, it falls between her hands and legs; nor disobey you in, doing, what is decent, which is that which concords with obedience to God, such as refraining from wailing, ripping apart [their] clothes [in grief], pulling out [their] hair, tearing open the front of [their] garments or scratching [their] faces, then accept their allegiance — the Prophet (s) did this [but] in words, and he did not shake hands with any of them — and ask God to forgive them; surely God is Forgiving, Merciful.

O you who believe, do not befriend a people against whom God is wrathful, namely, the Jews. They have truly despaired of the Hereafter, of [attaining] its reward — despite their being certain of its truth, out of obstinacy towards the Prophet, even though they know him to be sincere — just as the disbelievers have despaired — they [themselves] being — of those who are in the tombs, that is to say, those who are entombed [and barred] from the good of the Hereafter, for they are shown [both] their [would-have-been] places in Paradise, had they believed, and the Fire for which they are destined.

All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifies God, that is to say, [everything] proclaims His transcendence (the lām [of li’Llāhi] is extra, and mā has been used instead of min in order to indicate the predominance [of non-rational creatures]) and He is the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Wise, in His actions.

O you who believe, why do you say, in demanding [to participate in] the struggle, what you do not do?, for you retreated at Uhud.

It is greatly loathsome (maqtan is for specification) to God that you say (an taqūlū constitutes the agent of [the verb] kabura, ‘it is great[ly]’) what you do not do.

Indeed God loves, He assists and honours, those who fight for His cause in ranks (saffan is a circumstantial qualifier, in other words [understand it as] sāffīna), as if they were a solid structure, with all of its parts compacted together, firm.

And, mention, when Moses said to his people, ‘O my people, why do you harm me — [for] they had said that he had a hernia in his testicles, which he did not have, and they denied him — when certainly (qad is for confirmation) you know that I am the messenger of God to you?’ (annī rasūlu’Llāhi ilaykum: this sentence is a circumstantial qualifier) and [when you know that] messengers ought to be respected. So when they deviated, when they swerved away from the truth by harming him, God caused their hearts to deviate: He turned them away from guidance, in accordance to what He had preordained since pre-eternity, and God does not guide the immoral folk, those who, in His knowledge, are disbelievers.

And, mention, when Jesus son of Mary said, ‘O Children of Israel — he did not say ‘O my people’ [as did Moses] because he was not related to them in any way — I am indeed God’s messenger to you, confirming what is before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger who will come after me, whose name is Ahmad.’ God, exalted be He, says: Yet when he brought them, [when] Ahmad brought the disbelievers, the clear signs, the revelations and the indications, they said, ‘This, namely, what has been brought, is manifest sorcery!’ (sihrun: a variant reading has sāhirun, ‘a sorcerer’, meaning the one who has brought them [is a manifest sorcerer]).

And who does — that is to say, none does — greater wrong than he who invents lies against God, by ascribing a partner and a child to Him and describing His signs as being sorcery, when he is [actually] being summoned to submission [to God]? And God does not guide the wrongdoing folk, the disbelieving [folk].

They desire to extinguish (li-yutfi’ū is in the subjunctive form because of an implicit an [sc. an yutfi’ū], the lām being extra) the light of God, His Law and His proofs, with their mouths, with their sayings, that this is sorcery, or poetry or soothsaying; but God will perfect, He will manifest, His light (mutimmun nūrahu: some have read this in the form of a genitive annextation, mutimmu nūrihi) though the disbelievers be averse, to this.

It is He Who has sent His Messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it prevail, that He may raise it, over all [other] religions, [over] all the religions which oppose it, though the disbelievers be averse, to this.

O you who believe, shall I show you a commerce that will deliver you (read tunjīkum or tunajjīkum) from a painful chastisement? It is as if they had replied, ‘Yes’, so that He then says:

You should believe, you should maintain faith, in God and His Messenger and struggle for the cause of God with your possessions and your lives. That is better for you, should you know, that it is better for you, then do it.

He will [then] forgive you (yaghfir is the response to an implied conditional, that is to say, ‘if you do this, He will then forgive you’) your sins and admit you into gardens underneath which rivers flow and pleasant dwellings in the Gardens of Eden, as a residence. That is the supreme triumph.

And, He will give you, another, grace, which you love: help from God and a victory near at hand. And give good tidings to the believers, of assistance and victory.

O you who believe, be helpers of God, of His religion (a variant reading [of ansāran li’Llāhi] has the genitive annexation ansāra’Llāhi) just as said (kamā qāla to the end [of the statement] means ‘just as the disciples were so’, as is indicated by [what follows]) Jesus son of Mary to the disciples, ‘Who will be my helpers unto God?’, that is to say, who [of you] will be helpers alongside me turning to help God? The disciples said, ‘We will be God’s helpers!’ [These] al-hawāriyyūn [were] the intimates of Jesus, for they were the first to believe in him. They were twelve men of pure white complexion (hawar); but it is also said that [their epithet derives from the fact that] they were bleachers (qassārūn) who bleached (yuhawwirūna) clothes. So a group of the Children of Israel believed, in Jesus, saying: ‘He is [indeed] the servant of God, [who has been] raised to heaven’, while a group disbelieved, because they said that he was the son of God, whom He had raised unto Himself. Thus the two groups waged war against one another. Then We strengthened those who believed, of the two groups, against their enemy, the disbelieving groups, and so they became the triumphant, the victors.

All that is the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifies God, [all] proclaims His transcendence (the lām [of li’Llāhi] is extra; mā is used instead of min in order to indicate the predominance [of non-rational beings]), the King, the Holy, the One Who transcends what does not befit Him, the Mighty, the Wise, in His kingdom and in His actions.

It is He Who sent to the unlettered [folk], [among] the Arabs (ummī means ‘one who cannot write or read a book’), a messenger from among them, namely, Muhammad (s), to recite to them His signs, the Qur’ān, and to purify them, to cleanse them from idolatry, and to teach them the Book, the Qur’ān, and wisdom, [in] the rulings that it contains, though indeed (wa-in: in has been softened from the hardened form, with its subject having been omitted, that is to say, [understand it as] wa-innahum) before that, [before] his coming, they had been in manifest error.

And [to] others (wa-ākharīna is a supplement to al-ummiyyīna, ‘the unlettered’), that is to say, those who are alive, from among them, and [to] those of them who will come after them, who have not yet joined them, with regard to precedence and merit; and He is the Mighty, the Wise, in His kingdom and in His actions: those [mentioned as coming afterwards] are the Successors (al-tābi‘ūna); and it suffices to mention these [Successors] in order to illustrate the [greater] merit of the Companions, among whom the Prophet (s) was sent, over all those others, of humans and jinn, to whom he was [also] sent and who [believed and] will believe in him up until the Day of Resurrection, for every generation is better than the succeeding one.

That is the bounty of God, which He gives to whom He will — [such as] the Prophet and those mentioned with him — and God is [dispenser] of tremendous bounty.

The likeness of those who were entrusted with the Torah, those who were charged with implementing it, then failed to uphold it, [then] failed to act in accordance with it, in what pertains to the descriptions of the Prophet (s), and so did not believe in him, is as the likeness of an ass carrying books, in that it does not benefit from them. Evil is the likeness of the people who deny God’s signs, those confirming the truth of the Prophet (s) — (the object of rebuke is omitted but is implied to be hādhā’l-mathalu, ‘this likeness’). And God does not guide the evildoing folk, the disbelievers.

Say: ‘O you of Jewry, if you claim that you are the [favoured] friends of God, to the exclusion of other people, then long for death, if you are truthful’ (in kuntum sādiqīna is semantically connected to tamannū, ‘long for’; as for the two conditions, the first is dependent on the second, that is to say, if you are truthful in your claim that you are the [favoured] friends of God, and given that [such] a friend would prefer the Hereafter [to this world] and that it [the Hereafter] begins at death, then long for it).

But they will never long for it, because of what their hands have sent ahead, in the way of their disbelief of the Prophet, [which itself is] a necessary consequence of their denial; and God is Knower of the evildoers, the disbelievers.

Say: ‘Assuredly the death from which you flee (fa-innahu: the fā’ is extra) will indeed encounter you; then you will be returned to the Knower of the Unseen and the visible, [the Knower of] what is [kept] secret and what is in the open, and He will inform you of what you used to do’, whereat He will requite you for it.

O you who believe, when the call for prayer is made on Friday, hasten, set off, to the remembrance of God, to the prayer, and leave aside [all] commerce, suspend [all] such contracts. That is better for you, should you know, that it is better for you, then do it.

And when the prayer is finished, disperse in the land (this is an imperative denoting permissibility) and seek, provision through, God’s bounty, and remember God, with remembrance, frequently, that perhaps you may be successful, [that perhaps] you may be the winners.

On one occasion the Prophet (s) was delivering the Friday sermon when a caravan arrived and so, as was the custom, drums were beaten to announce its arrival, whereat the people began to leave the mosque [to go to it], all except for twelve men. The following [verse] was then revealed: But when they sight some [opportunity for] business or a diversion, they scatter off towards it, that is, towards the business, since it is what they seek more than diversion, and leave you, during the sermon, standing. Say: ‘That which is with God, in the way of reward, is better, for those who believe, than diversion and commerce. And God is the best of providers’. They say that every person ‘provides for’ (yarzuqu) his dependants, [by which they mean that such a person does so] by means of the provision given by God (min rizqi’Llāhi), exalted be He.

When the hypocrites come to you they say, with their tongues, in contradiction of what is in their hearts: ‘We bear witness that you are indeed the Messenger of God.’ And God knows that you are indeed His Messenger, and God bears witness, He knows, that the hypocrites truly are liars, in what they conceal, that which is contrary to what they say.

They have taken their oaths as a shield, as a [means of] protection for their possessions and their lives, and so they have barred, thereby, from the way of God, that is, from using them for the struggle. Evil indeed is that which they are wont to do.

That, namely, their evil deed, is because they believed, by [affirming faith only with] the tongue, then disbelieved, in [their] hearts, that is to say, they persist in harbouring disbelief in it; therefore their hearts have been stamped, sealed, with disbelief. Hence they do not understand, faith.

And when you see them, their figures please you, on account of their fairness; and if they speak, you listen to their speech, because of its eloquence. [Yet] they are, by virtue of the enormous size of their figures, [yet] in their lack of comprehension, like blocks of timber (read khushbun or khushubun) [that have been] propped-up, set reclining against a wall. They assume that every cry, made, like a battle-cry or one made to [retrieve] a lost camel, is [directed] against them, because of the [extent of] terror in their hearts, lest something should be revealed deeming their blood licit. They are the enemy, so beware of them, for they communicate your secrets to the disbelievers. May God assail them!, destroy them! How can they deviate?, how can they be turned away from faith after the proofs [for it] have been established?

And when it is said to them, ‘Come, offer apologies, and God’s Messenger will ask forgiveness for you’, they twist (read lawwaw or lawū), they turn, their heads, and you see them turning away, rejecting this [offer], disdainful.

It will be the same for them, whether you ask forgiveness for them (a’staghfarta: the interrogative hamza here has taken the place of the conjunctive hamza) or do not ask forgiveness for them: God will never forgive them. Indeed God does not guide the immoral folk.

They are the ones who say, to their companions from among the Helpers: ‘Do not expend on those who are with the Messenger of God, from among the Emigrants, until they scatter off’, until they part with him. Yet to God belong the treasuries of the heavens and the earth, with [what they contain of] provision, and so He is the provider for the Emigrants and others, but the hypocrites do not understand.

They say, ‘Surely if we return, from the raid against the Banū al-Mustaliq, to Medina, the powerful, by which they meant themselves, will [soon] expel from it the weaker’, by which they meant the believers. Yet [the real] might, victory, belongs to God and to His Messenger, and to the believers, but the hypocrites do not know, that.

O you who believe, do not let your possessions and your children divert you, distract you, from the remembrance of God, [from] the five prayers; for whoever does that — it is they who are the losers.

And expend, in alms, of that with which We have provided you before death comes to any of you, whereat he will say, ‘My Lord, if only (law-lā means hal-lā, ‘why [do You] not’; or the lā is extra and the law is optative) You would reprieve me for a short time so that I might give charity (assaddaq: the original tā’ [of atasaddaqa] has been assimilated with the sād), that I might offer alms, and become one of the righteous!’, by making the Pilgrimage. Ibn ‘Abbās, may God be pleased with both [him and his father], said, ‘Every person who has fallen short of [his duty regarding] alms and the Pilgrimage will ask to be returned [to this world] at the moment of death’.

But God will never reprieve a soul when its term has come. And God is Aware of what you do (ta‘malūna; also read [as the third person plural] ya‘malūna, ‘they do’).

All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifies God, [everything] proclaims His transcendence (the lām [of li’Llāhi] is extra; mā is used instead of min in order to indicate the predominance [of non-rational beings]). To Him belongs the Kingdom and to Him belongs [all] praise, and He has power over all things.

It is He Who created you. Then some of you are disbelievers and some of you are believers, in [terms of] your original disposition; then He makes you die and brings you back to life in that same [disposition]; and God is Seer of what you do.

He created the heavens and the earth with the truth, and He shaped you and made your shapes excellent, for He made the human form to be the best of forms; and to Him is the journey’s end.

He knows all that is in the heavens and the earth, and He knows what you hide and what you disclose, and God is Knower of what is in the breasts, in terms of the secrets and convictions they contain.

Has there not come to you, O disbelievers of Mecca, the tidings, the story, of those who disbelieved before and thus tasted the evil consequences of their conduct?, [they tasted] the punishment for disbelief in this world. And there will be for them, in the Hereafter, a painful chastisement?

That, chastisement in this world, is because (bi-annahu contains the pronoun of the matter) their messengers used to bring them clear signs, manifest proofs for [the validity of] faith, but they said, ‘Shall [mere] humans (basharan is meant as generic) be our guides?’ So they disbelieved and turned away, from faith, and God was independent, [without need] of their faith. And God is Independent, [without need] of His creatures, Praised, praiseworthy in His actions.

Those who disbelieve claim that (an is softened, its subject having been omitted, that is to say, annahum) they will never be resurrected. Say: ‘Yes indeed, by my Lord! You will be resurrected; then you will be informed of what you did. And that is easy for God’.

So believe in God and His Messenger and the Light, the Qur’ān, which We have revealed. And God is Aware of what you do.

Mention, the day when He will gather you for the Day of Gathering, the Day of Resurrection, that will be the Day of Dispossession, [on which] the believers will dupe the disbelievers by occupying [what would have been] their places in Paradise, had they believed, as well as [appropriating] their [believing] spouses. And [as for] those who believe in God and act righteously, He will absolve them of their misdeeds and admit them into gardens underneath which rivers flow (a variant reading for both verbs has the first person plural) wherein they will abide. That is the supreme triumph.

And [as for] those who disbelieved and denied Our signs — the Qur’ān — those, they will be the inhabitants of the Fire, wherein they will abide. And [what] an evil journey’s end!, it is.

No affliction strikes except by the leave of God, by His decree. And whoever believes in God, in His saying that every affliction is by His decreeing [it], He will guide his heart, to endure it [patiently]. And God is Knower of all things.

And obey God and obey the Messenger; but if you turn away, then the Messenger’s duty is only to communicate [the Message] clearly.

God — there is no god except Him. And in God let [all] believers put their trust.

O you who believe! Indeed among your wives and children there are enemies for you, so beware of them, of obeying them in neglecting [the performance of] good [deeds], such as struggling or emigrating — because the reason why this verse was revealed was [precisely their] obedience [of them] in such [matters]. And if you pardon, them, for their impeding you from such good [deeds], justifying it on account of the distress that parting with you causes them, and overlook [such enmity] and forgive, then assuredly God is Forgiving, Merciful.

Your possessions and your children are only a trial, for you, distracting [you] from the concerns of the Hereafter, and God — with Him is a great reward, so do not forfeit it by preoccupying yourselves with possessions and children.

So fear God as far as you can — this abrogates His saying: Fear God as He should be feared [Q. 3:102] — and listen, to what you have been enjoined to, listening disposed to accept, and obey and expend, in obedience [to Him]; that is better for your souls (khayran li-anfusikum is the predicate of an implied yakun, ‘[that] is’, and the response to the imperative). And whoever is shielded from the avarice of his own soul, such are the successful, the winners.

If you lend God a good loan, by giving voluntary alms out of the goodness of [your] hearts, He will multiply it for you (yudā‘ifhu: a variant reading has yuda‘‘ifhu), from tenfold up to seven hundredfold or more for each one — this [loan] being the giving of voluntary alms out of the goodness of the heart — and He will forgive you, whatever He will, and God is Appreciative, rewarding of obedience, Forbearing, in refraining from [always] punishing disobedience;

Knower of the Unseen, the hidden, and the visible, the disclosed, the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Wise, in His actions.

O Prophet, meaning [to address] his community, on account of what follows; or, [it means] say to them: when you [men] divorce women, when you intend to [effect a] divorce, divorce them by their prescribed period, at the beginning of it, such that the divorce is effected while she is pure and has not been touched [sexually], based on the Prophet’s (s) explaining it in this way, [as] reported by the two Shaykhs [al-Bukhārī and Muslim]. And count the prescribed period, keep record of it, so that you may repeal [your decision] before it is concluded; and fear God your Lord, obey Him in His commands and prohibitions. Do not expel them from their houses, nor let them go forth, from them until their prescribed period is concluded, unless they commit a blatant [act of] indecency, [such as] adultery (read mubayyana or mubayyina, corresponding [respectively] to buyyinat, ‘one that has been proven’, and bayyina, ‘blatant’), in which case they are brought out in order to carry out the [prescribed] legal punishment against them. And those, mentioned [stipulations], are God’s bounds; and whoever transgresses the bounds of God has verily wronged his soul. You never know: it may be that God will bring something new to pass afterwards, [after] the divorce, [such as] a retraction, in the event that it was the first or second [declaration of divorce].

Then, when they have reached their term, [when] they are near the end of their prescribed period, retain them, by taking them back, honourably, without coercion, or separate from them honourably, leave them to conclude their waiting period and do not compel them to go back [to you]. And call to witness two just men from among yourselves, [to witness] the retraction or the separation, and bear witness for the sake of God, and not [merely] for the sake of what is being witnessed or for the sake of the man. By this is exhorted whoever believes in God and the Last Day. And whoever fears God, He will make a way out for him, from the distress of this world and the Hereafter;

and He will provide for him from whence he never expected, [from whence] it never occurred to him. And whoever puts his trust in God, regarding his affairs, He will suffice him. Indeed God fulfils His command, His will (a variant reading [for bālighun amrahu] has the genitive construction [bālighu amrihi]). Verily God has ordained for everything, [even things] such as comfort and hardship, a measure, a fixed time.

And [as for] those of your women who (read allā’ī or allā’i in both instances) no longer expect to menstruate, if you have any doubts, about their waiting period, their prescribed [waiting] period shall be three months, and [also for] those who have not yet menstruated, because of their young age, their period shall [also] be three months — both cases apply to other than those whose spouses have died; for these [latter] their period is prescribed in the verse: they shall wait by themselves for four months and ten [days] [Q. 2:234]. And those who are pregnant, their term, the conclusion of their prescribed [waiting] period if divorced or if their spouses be dead, shall be when they deliver. And whoever fears God, He will make matters ease for him, in this world and in the Hereafter.

That, which is mentioned regarding the prescribed [waiting] period, is God’s command, His ruling, which He has revealed to you. And whoever fears God, He will absolve him of his misdeeds and magnify the reward for him.

Lodge them, that is, the divorced women, where you dwell, that is to say, in some part of your dwellings, in accordance with your means (min wujdikum is an explicative supplement, or a substitution of what precedes it with the repetition of the same preposition [min] and with an implied genitive annexation, in other words, [something like] amkinat sa‘atikum, ‘[house them in] the places of your means and not otherwise’) and do not harass them so as to put them in straits, with regard to accommodation, such that they would then need to go elsewhere or [be in need of] maintenance [to provide for themselves] so that they [are forced to] ransom themselves from you. And if they are pregnant, then maintain them until they deliver. Then, if they suckle for you, your children [whom you have] from them, give them their wages, for the suckling, and consult together, with them, honourably, with kindness, for the sake of the children, by mutual agreement on a fixed wage for the suckling. But if you both make difficulties, regarding the suckling, with either the father withholding [payment of] the wage or the mother refraining from performing it, then another woman will suckle [the child] for him, for the father, and the mother should not be compelled to suckle it.

Let the affluent man expend, on the divorced or the suckling woman, out of his affluence. And let he whose provision has been straitened, restricted, for him, expend of what God has given him, in accordance with his means. God does not charge any soul save except with what He has given it. God will assuredly bring about ease after hardship — which He indeed did by way of the [Muslim] conquests.

And how many (ka’ayyin: the kāf is the genitive prepositional particle which has been added to ayy, ‘which’, to give the meaning of kam, ‘how many’) a town — that is to say, many a town, meaning its inhabitants, disobeyed the command of its Lord and His messengers, then We called it, in the Hereafter — even if it has not yet arrived, [God says so] because of the fact that it will surely come to pass — to a severe reckoning and chastised it with a dire chastisement (read nukran or nukuran), namely, the chastisement of the Fire.

So it tasted the evil consequences of its conduct, the punishment for it, and the consequence of its conduct was [utter] loss, failure and destruction.

God has prepared for them a severe chastisement (the reiteration of the threat is for emphasis). So fear God, O people of pith, O possessors of intellect, [you] who believe! (this is a description of the vocative, or an explication of it) God has certainly revealed to you a [source of] remembrance, that is, the Qur’ān;

a messenger, that is, Muhammad (s) (rasūlan is in the accusative because of an implied verb, that is to say, wa-arsala, ‘and He sent you [a messenger]’) reciting to you the clear signs of God (read mubayyanāt or mubayyināt, as [explained] above) that He may bring forth those who believe and perform righteous deeds, after the arrival of the remembrance and the Messenger, from darkness, the disbelief to which they adhered, to light, the faith that was established in them after [a life of] disbelief. And those who believe in God and act righteously, He will admit them (a variant reading has the first person plural [nudkhilhu, ‘We will admit them’]) into gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they will abide forever. God has verily made a good provision for him, namely, the provision of Paradise, the bliss of which never ends.

God it is Who created seven heavens, and of earth the like thereof, that is to say, seven earths. The command, the revelation, descends between them, between the heavens and the earth: Gabriel descends with it from the seventh heaven to the seventh earth, that you may know (li-ta‘lamū is semantically connected to an omitted clause, that is to say, ‘He apprises you of this creation and this sending down [that you may know]’), that God has power over all things and that God encompasses all things in knowledge.

O Prophet! Why do you prohibit what God has made lawful for you, in terms of your Coptic handmaiden Māriya — when he lay with her in the house of Hafsa, who had been away, but who upon returning [and finding out] became upset by the fact that this had taken place in her own house and on her own bed — by saying, ‘She is unlawful for me!’, seeking, by making her unlawful [for you], to please your wives? And God is Forgiving, Merciful, having forgiven you this prohibition.

Verily God has prescribed, He has made lawful, for you [when necessary] the absolution of your oaths, to absolve them by expiation, as mentioned in the sūrat al-Mā’ida [Q. 5:89] and the forbidding of [sexual relations with] a handmaiden counts as an oath, so did the Prophet (s) expiate? Muqātil [b. Sulaymān] said, ‘He set free a slave [in expiation] for his prohibition of Māriya’; whereas al-Hasan [al-Basrī] said, ‘He never expiated, because the Prophet (s) has been forgiven [all errors]’. And God is your Protector, your Helper, and He is the Knower, the Wise.

And, mention, when the Prophet confided to one of his wives, namely, Hafsa, a certain matter, which was his prohibition of Māriya, telling her: ‘Do not reveal it!’; but when she divulged it, to ‘Ā’isha, reckoning there to be no blame in [doing] such a thing, and God apprised him, He informed him, of it, of what had been divulged, he announced part of it, to Hafsa, and passed over part, out of graciousness on his part. So when he told her about it, she said, ‘Who told you this?’ He said, ‘I was told by the Knower, the Aware’, namely, God.

If the two of you, namely, Hafsa and ‘Ā’isha, repent to God … for your hearts were certainly inclined, towards the prohibition of Māriya, that is to say, your keeping this secret despite [knowing] the Prophet’s (s) dislike of it, which is itself a sin (the response to the conditional [‘if the two of you repent to God’] has been omitted, to be understood as, ‘it will be accepted of both of you’; the use of [the plural] qulūb, ‘hearts’, instead of [the dual] qalbayn, ‘both [your] hearts’, is on account of the cumbersomeness of putting two duals together in what is effectively the same word); and if you support one another (tazzāharā: the original second tā’ [of tatazāharā] has been assimilated with the zā’; a variant reading has it without [this assimilation, tazāharā]) against him, that is, the Prophet, in what he is averse to, then [know that] God, He (huwa, [a pronoun] for separation) is indeed his Protector, His supporter, and Gabriel, and the righteous among the believers, Abū Bakr and ‘Umar, may God be pleased with both of them (wa-Jibrīlu wa-sālihu’l-mu’minīna is a supplement to the [syntactical] locus of the subject of inna [sc. ‘God’]), who will [also] be his supporters, and the angels furthermore, further to the support of God and those mentioned, are his supporters, assistants of his, in supporting him [to prevail] over both of you.

It may be that, if he divorces you, that is, [if] the Prophet divorces his wives, his Lord will give him in [your] stead (read yubaddilahu or yubdilahu) wives better than you (azwājan khayran minkunna is the predicate of ‘asā, ‘it may be’, the sentence being the response to the conditional) — the replacement [of his wives by God] never took place because the condition [of his divorcing them] never arose — women submissive [to God], affirming Islam, believing, faithful, obedient, penitent, devout, given to fasting — or given to emigrating [in God’s way] — previously married and virgins.

O you who believe! Guard yourselves and your families, by enjoining obedience to God, against a Fire whose fuel is, disbelieving, people and stones, such as those idols of theirs made of that [stone] — the meaning is that it is extremely hot, fuelled by the above-mentioned, unlike the fire of this world which is fuelled by wood and the like — over which stand angels, its keepers — numbering nineteen as will be stated in [sūrat] al-Muddaththir [Q. 74:30] — stern, a sternness of the heart, mighty, in [their power of] assault, who do not disobey God in what He commands them (mā amarahum is a substitution for His Majesty [‘God’]), in other words, they do not disobey the command of God, but do what they are commanded — this is [reiterated] for emphasis; the verse is meant as a threat to deter believers from apostatising and for hypocrites who believe only with their tongues and not with their hearts.

‘O you who disbelieve! Do not make any excuses today — this is said to them upon their entering the Fire — in other words, because this [excusing] will be of no use to you. You are only being requited for what you used to do’, that is, [only] the [due] requital thereof.

O you who believe! Repent to God with sincere repentance (read nasūhan or nusūhan), a truthful [repentance], so that one does not return to [committing] that sin again, nor have the desire to return to it. It may be that your Lord (‘asā: [an expression denoting] ‘a hope’ that will be realised) will absolve you of your misdeeds and admit you into gardens, orchards, underneath which rivers flow, on the day when God will not let down, by admitting into the Fire, the Prophet and those who believe with him. Their light will be running before them, in front of them, and, it will be, on their right. They will say (yaqūlūna: this denotes the beginning of a new [syntactically independent] sentence), ‘Our Lord! Perfect our light for us, towards Paradise — whereas the hypocrites, their light will be extinguished — and forgive us, Our Lord. Assuredly You have power over all things’.

O Prophet! Struggle against the disbelievers, with the sword, and the hypocrites, by the tongue and with argument, and be stern with them, in rebuke and hatred. For their abode will be Hell — and [what] an evil journey’s end!, it is.

God has struck a similitude for those who disbelieve: the wife of Noah and the wife of Lot. They were under two of Our righteous servants, yet they betrayed them, in [their] religion, for they both disbelieved — Noah’s wife, called Wāhila, used to say to his people that he was a madman, while Lot’s wife, called Wā‘ila, used to tell his people the whereabouts of his guests when they stayed with him, at night by lighting a fire, and during the day by making smoke. So they, that is, Noah and Lot, did not avail the two women in any way against God, against His chastisement, and it was said, to the two women: ‘Enter, both of you, the Fire along with the incomers’, from among the disbelievers of the peoples of Noah and Lot.

And God has struck a similitude for those who believe: the wife of Pharaoh — she believed in Moses, her name was Āsiya; Pharaoh chastised her by tying her hands and feet to pegs and placing a huge millstone on her chest, and having her laid out in the sun; but when those in charge of her would leave her, the angels would [come to] shade her — when she said, during her torture, ‘My Lord, build for me a home near You in Paradise, — so He disclosed for her [a veil of the Unseen] and she saw it, which in turn alleviated for her the torture — and deliver me from Pharaoh and his work, his torture, and deliver me from the evildoing folk’, the followers of his [Pharaoh’s] religion, whereat God took [unto Himself] her spirit [in death]. Ibn Kaysān said, ‘She was raised to Paradise alive, where she eats and drinks’.

And Mary (wa-Maryama is a supplement to imra’ata Fir‘awna) daughter of ‘Imrān, who preserved [the chastity of] her womb, so We breathed into it of Our Spirit, namely, Gabriel — when he breathed into the opening of her shirt, by God’s creation of this action of his which reached her womb, thus conceiving Jesus — and she confirmed the words of her Lord, His prescriptions, and His, revealed, Scriptures and she was of the obedient, [one] of the obedient folk.

Blessed, exalted above the attributes of created beings, is He in Whose hand, at Whose disposal, is [all] sovereignty, [all] authority and power, and He has power over all things.

[He] Who created death, in this world, and life, in the Hereafter — or both of them in this world, since the sperm-drop is imbued with life, [life being] that [power] by which sensation becomes possible, death being the opposite of this or the non-existence of it — these being two [alternative] opinions; in the case of the latter [life in the Hereafter], ‘creation’ implies ‘ordainment’ — that He may try you, that He may test you in [this] life, [to see] which of you is best in conduct, [which of you] is most obedient to God, and He is the Mighty, in His vengeance against those who disobey Him, the Forgiving, to those who repent to Him;

Who created seven heavens in layers, one above the other without any contact [between them]. You do not see in the Compassionate One’s creation, of these or of other things, any irregularity, any disparity or discordance. Then cast your eyes again, turn them toward the heaven: Do you see, in it, any fissure?, any cracks or ruptures?

Then cast your eyes yet again, once and then twice, and your sight will return to you humbled, abject on account of it not perceiving any fissure, and wearied, unable to see any fissure.

And verily We have adorned the lowest heaven, the one closest to the earth, with lamps, with stars, and made them missiles against the devils, should they [attempt to] listen by stealth, in which case a meteor of fire detaches itself from the star, just like a brand is taken from a fire, and either kills that jinn or deprives him of his senses: it is not that the star itself is displaced from its position; and We have prepared for them the chastisement of the Blaze, the ignited Fire.

And for those who disbelieve in their Lord there is the chastisement of Hell, and [what] an evil journey’s end!, it is.

When they are flung into it they hear it blaring, [producing] a horrid sound like that of an ass, as it seethes,

almost exploding (tamayyazu: a variant reading has the original [form] tatamayyazu) ripped apart, with rage, in wrath against the disbelievers. Whenever a host, a group of them, is flung into it, its keepers ask them, an interrogation of rebuke: ‘Did there not come to you a warner?’, a messenger to warn you of God’s chastisement.

They will say, ‘Yes, a warner did indeed come to us, but we denied and said, “God has not revealed anything; you are assuredly in great error”’: this [last words] may be the words of the angels [spoken] to the disbelievers when they are told of the denial, or they may belong to the words of the disbelievers [spoken] to the warners.

And they will say, ‘Had we listened, that is, listening so as to understand, or comprehended, that is, comprehension entailing reflection [upon the truth], we would not have been among the inhabitants of the Blaze’.

Thus they will confess, when confession is of no avail, their sin, which was their denial of the warners. So away (suhqan or suhuqan) with the inhabitants of the Blaze!, so far away may they be from God’s mercy.

Assuredly those who fear their Lord in secret, while they are absent from people’s eyes, being obedient to Him in secret, such that openly [before people] it is all the more likely [that they fear their Lord] — there will be for them forgiveness and a great reward, namely, Paradise.

And [whether you] keep secret, O people, your speech or proclaim it, He indeed, exalted be He, is Knower of what is in the breasts, of what they contain: so how much more so [is He Knower] in the case of what you utter [openly] — the reason for the revelation of this [verse] was that the idolaters said to one another: ‘Speak secretly, and Muhammad’s god will not hear you’.

Will He Who has created not know?, what you keep secret, in other words: will His knowledge of [things] be precluded by such [secret speech]? And He is the Subtle, in His knowledge, the Aware, therein.

It is He Who made the earth tractable for you, easy for you to walk on; so walk in its flanks and eat of His provision, that has been created for you; and to Him is the resurrection, from the graves for the Requital.

Are you secure (read a-amintum pronouncing both hamzas fully, or by not pronouncing the second one, inserting an alif between it and the other one, or without [the insertion] but replacing it with an alif instead) [in thinking] that He Who is in the heaven, [that He] Whose authority and power [is in the heaven], will not cause the earth to swallow you (an yakhsifa substitutes for man, ‘He Who’) while it quakes?, [while] it moves underneath you and rises above you?

Are you secure [in thinking] that He Who is in the heaven will not unleash (an yursila substitutes for man, ‘He Who’) upon you a squall of pebbles?, a wind hurling pebbles at you. But you will [soon] come to know, upon seeing the chastisement with your own eyes, the nature of My warning, My warning of chastisement, in other words, [you will soon see] that it was true.

And verily those, communities, who were before them denied, then [see] how was My rebuttal!, [how was] My rebuttal of them in destroying them when they denied: in other words, [how] it was true.

Or have they not seen the birds above them, in the air, spreading their wings and closing?, their wings after spreading them? (in other words [read wa-yaqbidna] as wa-qābidātin [similar to sāffātin, ‘spreading’]). Nothing sustains them, from falling, either when they are spreading them or closing them, except the Compassionate One, by His power. Indeed He is Seer of all things. The meaning is: have they not inferred from the fact that the birds [are able to] remain in the air that We have the power to do with them what has been mentioned above as well as [inflicting upon them] other kinds of chastisement?

Or who (am-man: the subject) is it (hādhā: its predicate) that (alladhī: a substitution for hādhā, ‘is it’) will be an army, supporters, for you (lakum belongs to the relative clause of alladhī, ‘that’) to help you (yansurukum is an adjectival qualification of jundun, ‘an army’) besides the Compassionate One?, that is to say, other than Him, who [is there that] will [be able to] avert His chastisement from you, in other words, you have no helper. The disbelievers are in nothing but delusion: Satan has deluded them [into believing] that the chastisement will not befall them.

Or who is it that will provide for you if He, the Compassionate One, withholds His provision?, that is to say, [if He withholds] the rain from you (the response to the conditional has been omitted, but is indicated by what preceded it, namely [the statement to the effect] ‘who will provide for you?’, and so [the response would be]: you have no provider other than Him. Nay, but they persist in disdain and aversion, moving away [further] from the truth.

Is he who walks cast down, fallen, on his face more rightly guided, or he who walks upright on a straight path? (the predicate of the second man, ‘who’, has been omitted, but is indicated by the predicate of the first, namely, ahdā, ‘more rightly guided’; the similitude refers to the believer and the disbeliever and to which of the two is more rightly guided).

Say: ‘It is He Who created you and endowed you with hearing and sight and hearts. Little do you thank!’ (mā tashkurūna: mā is extra; the sentence itself is a new [independent] one, informing of how extremely little they give thanks for these graces).

Say: ‘It is He Who multiplied you, created you, on earth, and to Him you will be gathered’, for the Reckoning.

And they say, to the believers: ‘When will this promise be [fulfilled], the promise of the gathering, if you are truthful?’, about it.

Say: ‘The knowledge, of its coming, is only with God, and I am but a plain warner’, one whose warning is plain.

But when they see it, that is, the chastisement, after the gathering, near at hand, the faces of those who disbelieved will be awry, blackened, and it will be said, that is, the keepers [of Hell] will say to them: ‘This is that, chastisement, which, the warning of which, you used to make claims about’, [claims to the effect] that you would not be resurrected — this is the narration of a situation that will take place [in the future], and which has been expressed using the past tense in order to confirm that it will actually take place.

Say: ‘Have you considered: If God destroys me and those with me, of believers, by His chastisement, as you would have it, or has mercy on us, and does not chastise us, who then will protect the disbelievers from a painful chastisement?’: in other words, they will have no protector from it.

Say: ‘He is the Compassionate One; we believe in Him, and in Him we put our trust. And assuredly you will [soon] know (sa-ta‘lamūna is also read sa-ya‘lamūna, ‘they will know’) upon seeing the chastisement with your own eyes, who is in manifest error’: is it us, or yourselves or them?

Say: ‘Have you considered: If your water were to sink deep into the earth, who then will bring you running water?’, which hands and buckets would be able to reach, like [they do] your water: in other words, none but God, exalted be He, would be able to bring it, so how can you reject that He will resurrect you? It is commendable for one to say Allāhu rabbu’l-‘ālamīna, ‘God, Lord of the Worlds!’, after ma‘īn, ‘running water’, as is stated in a hadīth. This verse was recited before a certain tyrant who then replied, ‘Hatchets and pickaxes will bring it!’, whereupon the water of his eyes dried up and he became blind. We seek refuge with God against that we should be insolent towards Him or His verses.

Nūn, one of the letters of the alphabet: God knows best what He means by it. By the Pen, with which He has inscribed [the records of] all creatures in the Preserved Tablet, and what they inscribe, that is, the angels, of good and righteousness.

You are not, O Muhammad (s), by the grace of your Lord, a madman, that is to say, madness is precluded in your case, on account of your Lord’s grace to you by way of [His assigning to you] prophethood and in other ways — this was a refutation of their saying that he was a madman.

And assuredly you will have an unfailing reward.

And assuredly you possess a magnificent nature, [a magnificent] religion.

Then you will see and they will see,

which of you is demented (al-maftūn is a verbal noun, similar [in expressional form] to al-ma‘qūl, ‘intelligible’; al-futūn meaning al-junūn, ‘insanity’) in other words, is it [this insanity] in you or in them?

Assuredly your Lord knows best those who stray from His way, and He knows best those who are guided, to Him.

So do not obey the deniers.

They desire, they yearn, that (law relates to the verbal action) you should be pliable, [that] you should yield to them, so that they may be pliable [towards you], [so that] they may yield to you (fa-yudhinūna is a supplement to tudhinu, ‘you should be pliable’, but if it is understood to be the response to the optative clause of waddū, ‘they yearn’, then [a free standing pronoun] hum should be read as implied before it after the fā’ [sc. fa-hum yudhinūna]).

And do not obey any mean, despicable, oath-monger, given to frequent swearing by falsehood,

backbiting, faultfinder, that is to say, calumniator, scandal-monger, spreading [evil] talk among people in order to sow dissension between them,

hinderer of good, niggardly with his wealth against deserving causes, sinful transgressor, wrongdoer,

coarse-grained, crude, moreover ignoble, an adopted son of Quraysh — namely, al-Walīd b. al-Mughīra, whose father claimed him after eighteen years; Ibn ‘Abbās said, ‘We know of no one whom God has described in the derogatory way in which He describes him, blighting him with ignominy that will never leave him (the adverbial qualifier [ba‘da dhālika, ‘moreover’] is semantically connected to zanīm, ‘ignoble’) —

[only] because (an should be understood as li-an, ‘because’, and it is semantically connected to that [meaning] which it is indicating) he has wealth and sons.

When Our signs — the Qur’ān — are recited to him, he says, that they are [merely], ‘Fables of the ancients!’, in other words, he denies them [in arrogance] on account of the mentioned things which We have bestowed on him out of Our grace (a variant reading [for an of the previous verse] has [the interrogative] a-an).

We shall brand him on the snout: We shall leave a distinguishing mark upon his nose, one by which he will be reviled for as long as he lives; and so his nose was chopped off by a sword at Badr.

Indeed We have tried them, We have tested the people of Mecca with drought and famine, just as We tried the owners of the garden, the orchard, when they vowed that they would pluck, [that] they would pick its fruits, in the morning, so that the poor folk would not notice them and so that they would not then have to give them of it that [portion] which their father used to give them of it by way of charity.

And they did not make any exception, to their vow, for God’s will (the sentence is a new [syntactically independent] one, in other words: and that was their condition).

Then a visitation from your Lord visited it, [that is] a fire consumed it during the night, while they slept.

So by the morning it was like the darkness of night, in other words, black.

They then called out to one another in the morning,

[saying], ‘Go forth early to your tillage, your produce (ani’ghdū ‘alā harthikum constitutes an explication of [the import of] tanādaw, ‘they called out to one another’; otherwise, an relates to the verbal action, [to be understood as] being bi-an) if you are going to pluck’, if your intention is to pick [the fruits] (the response to the conditional is indicated by what preceded it).

So off they went, whispering to one another, talking secretly:

‘No needy person shall today come to you in it’ (this constitutes the explication of the preceding [verse]; or else, an relates to the verbal action, [to be understood] to mean bi-an).

And they went forth early, supposing themselves, able to prohibit, to prevent the poor folk [from enjoying the fruit].

But when they saw it, blackened and charred, they said, ‘Assuredly we have strayed!’, from it, that is to say: this is not the one. Then when they recognised it, they said:

‘Nay, but we have been deprived!’, of its fruits, by our denying it to the poor folk.

The most moderate, the best one, among them said, ‘Did I not say to you, “Why do you not glorify?” ’, God, repenting [to Him].

They said, ‘Glory be to God, our Lord. Verily we have been wrongdoers’, by denying the poor folk [what is] their due.

They then turned to one another, blaming each other.

They said, ‘O ([yā is] for calling attention to something) woe to us!, [O] destruction of ours. We have indeed been unjust.

It may be that our Lord will give us in its place (read yubaddilanā or yubdilanā) one that is better than it. Truly we turn humbly to our Lord’, that He might accept our repentance and give us back [a garden that is] better than our garden — it is reported that they were indeed given a better one in its place.

Such, that is to say, like the chastisement for these [people], will be the chastisement, for those disbelievers of Mecca and others who contravene Our command; and the chastisement of the Hereafter is assuredly greater, did they but know, its chastisement, they would not have contavened Our command. When they said ‘If we are resurrected, we shall be given better than [what] you [have been given], the following was revealed:

Verily for the God-fearing there will be the Gardens of Bliss near their Lord.

Are We then to treat those who submit [to Us] as [We treat] the sinners?, that is to say, as belonging with them in terms of reward?

What is wrong with you? How do you judge?, with such corrupt judgement?

Or (am lakum means a-lakum) do you have a Scripture, revealed, wherein you learn, [wherein] you read,

that you will indeed have in it whatever you choose?

Or do you have oaths, pledges, binding, secured, on Us until the Day of Resurrection (ilā yawmi’l-qiyāmati is semantically connected to ‘alaynā, ‘on Us’; these words [‘alaynā bālighatun, ‘binding on Us’] contain the sense of an oath [given], in other words, ‘Did We swear to you?’, the response to which is [what follows]) that you will indeed have whatever you decide?, to have for yourselves.

Ask them, which of them will aver, will guarantee for them, that?, [that] decision which they have made for themselves, namely, that they will be given better [reward] than the believers in the Hereafter?

Or do they have partners?, who agree with them in this claim of theirs and able to guarantee it for them; if that is the case: Then let them produce their partners, those who will guarantee this for them, if they are truthful.

Mention, the day when the shank is bared (an expression denoting the severity of the predicament during the reckoning and the requital on the Day of Resurrection: one says kashafati’l-harbu ‘an sāqin, ‘the war has bared its shank’, to mean that it has intensified) and they are summoned to prostrate themselves, as a test of their faith, but they will not be able [to do so] — their backs will become as [stiff as] a brick wall.

With humbled (khāshi‘atan is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the person [of the verb] yud‘awna, ‘they are summoned’) that is to say, with abject, gazes, which they do not raise, they will be overcast, enveloped, by abasement; for they had indeed been summoned, in this world, to prostrate themselves while they were yet sound, but they never used to do it, by the fact that they never performed prayer.

So leave Me [to deal] with those who deny this discourse — the Qur’ān. We will draw them on by degrees, We will seize them little by little, whence they do not know.

And I will grant them respite; [for] assuredly My devising is firm, [My devising is] severe and cannot be withstood.

Or are you asking them a fee, in return for delivering the Message, so that they are weighed down with debt?, [so that they are weighed down] with what they will [have to] give you, and that is why they do not believe.

Or do they possess [access to] the Unseen, that is, [access to] the Preserved Tablet which contains [knowledge of] the Unseen, so that they are writing down?, from it what they say.

So await patiently the judgement of your Lord, regarding them in the way that He wills, and do not be like the one of the whale, in terms of impatience and haste — this is Jonah, peace be upon him — who called out, [who] supplicated his Lord, choking with grief, filled with anguish inside the belly of the whale.

Had it not been for a grace, a mercy, from his Lord that reached him, he would have surely been cast, out of the belly of the whale, onto a wilderness, a desolate land, while he was blameworthy — but he was shown mercy and was therefore cast out blameless.

But his Lord chose him, for prophethood, and made him one of the righteous, the prophets.

Indeed those who disbelieve would almost throw you down [to the ground] (read la-yuzliqūnaka or la-yazliqūnaka) with their looks, looking at you in a severe way, almost hurling you to the ground or making you fall from your place, when they hear the Reminder, the Qur’ān, and they say, out of envy: ‘He is truly a madman!’, on account of the Qur’ān that he has brought.

Yet it, namely, the Qur’ān, is just a Reminder, an admonition, for all the worlds, of [both] humans and jinn, and cannot be the cause of any dementia.