Though the life to come is better and more enduring.

This truly is in the Books of old,

The Books of Abraham1 and Moses.

_______________________

1 Thus the Rabbins attribute the Book Jezirah to Abraham.  See Fabr.  Cod.  Apoc.  V. T. p. 349.

SURA XCV.-THE FIG [XXVI.]

Mecca.-8 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

I swear by the Fig and by the olive,

By Mount Sinai,

And by this inviolate soil!1

That of goodliest fabric we created man,

Then brought him down to be the lowest of the low;-

Save who believe and do the things that are right, for theirs shall be a reward that faileth not.

Then, who after this shall make thee treat the Judgment as a lie?

What! is not God the most just of judges?

_______________________

1 In allusion to the sacredness of the territory of Mecca.  This valley in about the fourth century of our ‘ra was a kind of sacred forest of 37 miles in circumference, and called Haram a name applied to it as early as the time of Pliny (vi. 32).  It had the privilege of asylum, but it was not lawful to inhabit it, or to carry on commerce within its limits, and its religious ceremonies were a bond of union to several of the Bedouin tribes of the Hejaz.  The Koreisch had monopolised most of the offices and advantages of the Haram in the time of Muhammad.  See Sprenger’s Life of Mohammad, pp. 7 20.

SURA CIII.-THE AFTERNOON [XXVII.]

Mecca.-3 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

I swear by the declining day!

Verily, man’s lot is cast amid destruction,1

Save those who believe and do the things which be right, and enjoin truth and enjoin stedfastness on each other.

_______________________

1 Said to have been recited in the Mosque shortly before his death by Muhammad.  See Weil, p. 328.

SURA LXXXV.-THE STARRY [XXVIII.]

Mecca.-22 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

By the star-bespangled Heaven!1

By the promised Day!

By the witness and the witnessed!2

Cursed the masters of the trench3

Of the fuel-fed fire,

When they sat around it

Witnesses of what they inflicted on the believers!

Nor did they torment them but for their faith in God, the Mighty, the
Praiseworthy:4

His the kingdom of the Heavens and of the Earth; and God is the witness of everything.

Verily, those who vexed the believers, men and women, and repented not, doth the torment of Hell, and the torment of the burning, await.