Outlooking towards their Lord;

And faces on that day shall be dismal,

As if they thought that some great calamity would befal them.

Aye, when the soul shall come up into the throat,

And there shall be a cry, “Who hath a charm that can restore him?”

And the man feeleth that the time of his departure is come,

And when one leg shall be laid over the other,4

To thy Lord on that day shall he be driven on;

For he believed not, and he did not pray,

But he called the truth a lie and turned his back,

Then, walking with haughty men, rejoined his people.

That Hour is nearer to thee and nearer,5

It is ever nearer to thee and nearer still.

Thinketh man that he shall be left supreme?

Was he not a mere embryo?6

Then he became thick blood of which God formed him and fashioned him;

And made him twain, male and female.

Is not He powerful enough to quicken the dead?

_______________________

1 Lit. shall be united.  In the loss of light, or in the rising in the west.- Beidh.

2 Supply, it shall not be accepted.

3 Verses 16-19 are parenthetic, and either an address to Muhammad by Gabriel desiring him (I) not to be overcome by any fear of being unable to follow and retain the revelation of this particular Sura; (2) or, not to interrupt him, but to await the completion of the entire revelation before he should proceed to its public recital.  In either case we are led to the conclusion that, from the first, Muhammad had formed the plan of promulging a written book.  Comp.  Sura xx. 112.

4 In the death-struggle.

5 Or, Therefore woe to thee, woe!  And, again, woe to thee, woe.  Thus Sale, Ullm.  Beidhawi; who also gives the rendering in the text, which is that of Maracci.

6 Nonne fuit humor ex spermate quod spermatizatur.

SURA LXXXIII.-THOSE WHO STINT [XLI.]

Mecca.-36 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Woe to those who stint the measure: 

Who when they take by measure from others, exact the full;

But when they mete to them or weigh to them, minish-

What! have they no thought that they shall be raised again

For the great day?

The day when mankind shall stand before the Lord of the worlds.

Yes! the register of the wicked is in Sidjin.1

And who shall make thee understand what Sidjin is?

It is a book distinctly written.

Woe, on that day, to those who treated our signs as lies,

Who treated the day of judgment as a lie!

None treat it as a lie, save the transgressor, the criminal,

Who, when our signs are rehearsed to him, saith, “Tales of the Ancients!”