That ye may sit balanced on their backs and remember the goodness of your Lord as ye sit so evenly thereon, and say:  “Glory to Him who hath subjected these to us!  We could not have attained to it of ourselves: 

And truly unto our Lord shall we return.”

Yet do they assign to him some of his own servants for offspring!  Verily man is an open ingrate!

Hath God adopted daughters from among those whom he hath created, and chosen sons for you?

But when that3 is announced to any one of them, which he affirmeth to be the case with the God of Mercy,4 his face settleth into darkness and he is silent-sad.

What! make they a being to be the offspring of God who is brought up among trinkets, and is ever contentious without reason?

And they make the angels who are the servants of God of Mercy, females.  What! did they witness their creation?  Their witness shall be taken down, and they shall hereafter be enquired at.

And they say:  “Had the God of Mercy so willed it we should never have worshipped them.”  No knowledge have they in this:  they only lie.

Have we ere this given them a Book?5 and do they possess it still?

But say they:  “Verily we found our fathers of that persuasion, and verily, by their footsteps do we guide ourselves.”

And thus never before thy time did we send a warner to any city but its wealthy ones said:  “Verily we found our fathers with a religion, and in their tracks we tread.”

Say,-such was our command to that apostle-"What! even if I bring you a religion more right than that ye found your fathers following?” And they said, “Verily we believe not in your message.”

Wherefore we took vengeance on them, and behold what hath been the end of those who treated our messengers as liars!

And bear in mind when Abraham said to his father and to his people, “Verily I am clear of what ye worship,

Save Him who hath created me; for he will vouchsafe me guidance.”

And this he established as a doctrine that should abide among his posterity, that to God might they be turned.

In sooth to these idolatrous Arabians and to their fathers did I allow their full enjoyments, till the truth should come to them, and an undoubted apostle: 

But now that the truth hath come to them, they say, “’Tis sorcery, and we believe it not.”

And they say, “Had but this Koran been sent down to some great one of the two cities6 . . .!”

Are they then the distributors of thy Lord’s Mercy?7 It is we who distribute their subsistence among them in this world’s life; and we raise some of them by grades above others, that the one may take the other to serve him:  but better is the mercy of thy Lord than all their hoards.

But for fear that all mankind would have become a single people of unbelievers, verily we would certainly have given to those who believe not in the God of Mercy roofs of silver to their houses, and silver stairs to ascend by;