The Quran (Koran), 1st translation by - (inspirational books to read txt) 📖

for those who dread the majesty of their Lord shall be two gardens:

Which, etc.

With o'erbranching trees in each:

Which, etc.

In each two kinds of every fruit:

Which, etc.

On couches with linings of brocade shall they recline, and the fruit of the two gardens shall be within easy reach:

Which, etc.

Therein shall be the damsels with retiring glances, whom nor man nor djinn hath touched before them:

Which, etc.

Like jacynths and pearls:

Which, etc.

Shall the reward of good be aught but good?

Which, etc.

And beside these shall be two other gardens:5

Which, etc.

Of a dark green:

Which, etc.

With gushing fountains in each:

Which, etc.

In each, fruits and the palm and the pomegranate:

Which, etc.

In each, the fair, the beauteous ones:

Which, etc.

With large dark eyeballs, kept close in their pavilions:

Which, etc.

Whom man hath never touched, nor any djinn:6

Which, etc.

Their spouses on soft green cushions and on beautiful carpets shall recline:

Which, etc.

Blessed be the name of thy Lord, full of majesty and glory.

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1 Men and djinn. The verb is in the dual.

2 Lit. of the two easts, of the two wests, i.e., of all that lies between the extreme points at which the sun rises and sets at the winter and summer solstices.

3 Lit. he hath set at large, poured forth over the earth the masses of fresh and salt water which are in contact at the mouths of rivers, etc. See Sura [lxviii.] xxvii. 62; [lxxxvi.] xxxv. 13.

4 Lit. O ye two weights; hence, treasures; and, generally, any collective body of men or things.

5 One for men, the other for the Genii; or, two for each man and Genius; or, both are for the inferior classes of Muslims. Beidh.

6 It should be remarked that these promises of the Houris of Paradise are almost exclusively to be found in Suras written at a time when Muhammad had only a single wife of 60 years of age, and that in all the ten years subsequent to the Hejira, women are only twice mentioned as part of the reward of the faithful. Suras ii. 23 and iv. 60. While in Suras xxxvi. 56; xliii. 70; xiii. 23; xl. 8 the proper wives of the faithful are spoken of as accompanying their husbands into the gardens of bliss.

SURA LIV.-THE MOON [XLIX.]

MECCA.-55 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

The hour hath approached and the MOON hath been cleft:

But whenever they see a miracle they turn aside and say, This is well-devised magic.

And they have treated the prophets as impostors, and follow their own lusts; but everything is unalterably fixed.

A message of prohibition had come to them-

Consummate wisdom-but warners profit them not.

Quit them then. On the day when the summoner shall summon to a stern business,

With downcast eyes shall they come forth from their graves, as if they were scattered locusts,

Hastening to the summoner. "This," shall the infidels say, "is the distressful day."

Before them the people of Noah treated the truth as a lie. Our servant did they charge with falsehood, and said, "Demoniac!" and he was rejected.

Then cried he to his Lord, "Verily, they prevail against me; come thou therefore to my succour."

So we opened the gates of Heaven with water which fell in torrents,

And we caused the earth to break forth with springs, and their waters met by settled decree.

And we bare him on a vessel made with planks and nails.

Under our eyes it floated on: a recompence to him who had been rejected with unbelief.

And we left it a sign: but, is there any one who receives the warning?

And how great was my vengeance and my menace!

Easy for warning have we made the Koran-but, is there any one who receives the warning?

The Adites called the truth a lie: but how great was my vengeance and my menace;

For we sent against them a roaring wind in a day of continued distress:

It tore men away as though they were uprooted palm stumps.

And how great was my vengeance and my menace!

Easy for warning have we made the Koran-but, is there any one who receives the warning?

The tribe of Themoud treated the threatenings as lies:

And they said, "Shall we follow a single man from among ourselves? Then verily should we be in error and in folly.

To him alone among us is the office of warning entrusted? No! he is an impostor, an insolent person."

To-morrow shall they learn who is the impostor, the insolent.

"For we will send the she-camel to prove them: do thou mark them well, O
Saleh, and be patient:

And foretell them that their waters shall1 be divided between themselves and her, and that every draught shall come by turns to them."

But they called to their comrade, and he took a knife and ham-strung her.

And how great was my vengeance and my menance!

We sent against them a single shout; and they became like the dry sticks of the fold-builders.

Easy have we made the Koran for warning-but, is there any one who receives the warning?

The people of Lot treated his warning as a lie;

But we sent a stone-charged wind against them all, except the family of Lot, whom at daybreak we delivered,

By our special grace-for thus we reward the thankful.

He, indeed, had warned them of our severity, but of that warning they doubted.

Even this guess did they demand: therefore we deprived them of sight,

And said, "Taste ye my vengeance and my menace;"

And in the morning a relentless punishment overtook them.

Easy have we made the Koran for warning but, is there any one who receives the warning?

To the people of Pharaoh also came the threatenings:

All our miracles did they treat as impostures. Therefore seized we them as he only can seize, who is the Mighty, the Strong.

Are your infidels, O Meccans, better men than these? Is there an exemption for you in the sacred Books?

Will they say, "We are a host that lend one another aid?"

The host shall be routed, and they shall turn them back.

But, that Hour is their threatened time, and that Hour shall be most severe and bitter.

Verily, the wicked are sunk in bewilderment and folly.

On that day they shall be dragged into the fire on their faces. "Taste ye the touch of Hell."

All things have we created after a fixed decree:

Our command was but one word, swift as the twinkling of an eye.

Of old, too, have we destroyed the like of you-yet is any one warned?

And everything that they do is in the Books;2

Each action, both small and great, is written down.

Verily, amid gardens3 and rivers shall the pious dwell.

In the seat of truth, in the presence of the potent King.

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1 See Sura [lvi.] xxvi. 155; also Sura [lxxxvii.] vii. 71.

2 Kept by the Guardian Angels.

3 The Talmudic descriptions of the Gardens-for the later Jews believed in more than one Paradise-and of the rivers and trees therein, will be found in Schr der Talm. Rabb. Judenthum, pp. 418-432.

SURA XXXVII.-THE RANKS [L.]

MECCA.-182 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

By the angels ranged in order for Songs of Praise,

And by those who repel demons,1

And by those who recite the Koran for warning,

Truly your God is but one,

Lord of the Heavens and of the Earth, and of all that is between them, and
Lord of the East.2

We have adorned the lower heaven with the adornment of the stars.

They serve also as a guard against every rebellious Satan,

That they overhear not what passeth in the assembly on high, for they are darted at from every side,3

Driven off and consigned to a lasting torment;

While, if one steal a word by stealth, a glistening flame pursueth him.

Ask the Meccans then, Are they, or the angels whom we have made, the stronger creation? Aye, of coarse clay have we created them.

But while thou marvellest they mock;

When they are warned, no warning do they take;

And when they see a sign, they fall to mocking,

And say, "This is no other than clear sorcery:

What! when dead, and turned to dust and bones, shall we indeed be raised?

Our sires also of olden times?"

Say, Yes; and ye shall be covered with disgrace.

For, one blast only, and lo! they shall gaze around them, And shall say, "Oh! woe to us! this is the day of reckoning; This is the day of decision which ye gainsaid as an untruth."

Gather together those who have acted unjustly, and their consorts,4 and the gods whom they adored

Beside God; and guide them to the road for Hell.

Set them forth: they shall be questioned.

"How now, that ye help not one another?"

But on this day they shall submit themselves to God,

And shall address one another with mutual reproaches.

They shall say, "In sooth, ye came to us in well-omened sort:"5

But they will answer, "Nay, it was ye who would not believe; and we had no power whatever over you. Nay, ye were people given to transgress;

Just, therefore, is the doom which our Lord hath passed upon us.6 We shall surely taste it:

We made you err, for we had erred ourselves."

Partners therefore shall they be in punishment on that day.

Truly, thus will we deal with the wicked,

Because when it was said to them, There is no God but God, they swelled with pride,

And said, "Shall we then abandon our gods for a crazed poet?"

Nay, he cometh with truth and confirmeth the Sent Ones of old.

Ye shall surely taste the painful punishment,

And ye shall not be rewarded but as ye have wrought,

Save the sincere servants of God!

A stated banquet shall they have

Of fruits; and honoured shall they be

In the gardens of delight,

Upon couches face to face.

A cup shall be borne round among them from a fountain,

Limpid, delicious to those who drink;

It shall not oppress the sense, nor shall they therewith be drunken.

And with them are the large-eyed ones with modest refraining glances, fair like the sheltered egg.7

And they shall address one another with mutual questions.

Saith one of them, "I truly had a bosom friend,

Who said, 'Art thou of those who credit it?

What! when we shall have died, and become dust and bones, shall we indeed be judged?"'

He shall say to those around him, "Will ye look?"

And he shall look and see him in the midst of Hell.

And he shall say to him, "By God, thou hadst almost caused me to perish;

And, but for the favour of my Lord, I had surely been of those who have been brought with thee into torment."

"But do we not die," say the blessed,

"Any other than our first death? and have we escaped the torment?"8

This truly is the great felicity!

For the like of this should the travailers travail!

Is this the better repast or the tree Ez-zakkoum?

Verily, we have made it for a subject of discord to the wicked.

It is a tree which cometh up from the bottom of hell;

Its fruits is as it were the heads of Satans;

And, lo! the damned shall surely eat of it and fill their bellies with it:

Then shall they have, thereon, a mixture of boiling water:

Then shall they return to hell.

They found their fathers erring,

And they hastened on in their footsteps.

Also before them the greater number of the ancients had erred.

Though we had sent warners among them.

But see what was the end of these warned ones,

Except of God's true servants.

Noah called on us of old, and right prompt were we to hear him,9

And we saved him and his family out of the great distress,

And we made his offspring the survivors;

And we left for him