Say:  Shall we tell you who they are that have lost their labour most?

Whose aim in the present life hath been mistaken, and who deem that what they do is right?

They are those who believe not in the signs of the Lord, or that they shall ever meet him.  Vain, therefore, are their works; and no weight will we allow them on the day of resurrection.

This shall be their reward-Hell.20 Because they were unbelievers, and treated my signs and my Apostles with scorn.

But as for those who believe and do the things that are right, they shall have the gardens of Paradise21 for their abode: 

They shall remain therein for ever:  they shall wish for no change from it.

Say:  Should the sea become ink, to write the words of my Lord, the sea would surely fail ere the words of my Lord would fail, though we brought its like in aid.

Say:  In sooth I am only a man like you.  It hath been revealed to me that your God is one only God:  let him then who hopeth to meet his Lord work a righteous work:  nor let him give any other creature a share in the worship of his Lord.

_______________________

1 Lit. hath not put crookedness into it.

2 The valley, or mountain, in which the Cave of the Seven Sleepers was situated.  Comp.  Fundgreiben des Orients, iii. 347-381.  Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, ch. xxxiii., especially the concluding sentences.

3 Because they slept with their eyes open.  Beidh.

4 The Muhammadans believe that this dog will be admitted into Paradise.  One of its traditional names is Katmir, a word whose letters, it should be observed, are with one exception identical with Rakim.

5 Lit. dispute not about them unless with clear disputation.

6 Muhammad had omitted to use the qualifying phrase when, in reply to the Jews who asked for the History of the Seven Sleepers, he simply promised to give it on the morrow; hence, this verse.  Comp.  James iv. 13-15.

7 They entered the cavern under Decius and awoke in the time of Theodosius, according to the tradition; which cannot be reconciled with the number of years given in the text.

8 Thus Ullm.  But the words may be taken with Beidh. and Sale, as ironical.  Make thou him to see and hear.

9 Said to have been promulgated at Medina.  Nöld. p. 106

10 Omaya Ibn Chalf, who advised Muhammad to cast off all his poorer followers, out of respect to the Koreisch.

11 It is probable that this and the numerous similar descriptions of the enjoyments in Paradise are based upon Muhammad’s knowledge, or possibly personal observation, of the luxurious habits of the Persians, to whom many Arabian tribes owed allegiance, and with whom they had mercantile transactions by means of caravans.  The word Paradise, the names of cups and brocade in Sura lvi. pp. 66, 67, and the word sundus in this passage, are all Persian.