And a day is coming when the infidels shall be set before the fire.  “Is not this it in truth?” They shall say, “Aye, by our Lord.”  He said, “Taste then the punishment for that ye would not believe.”

Bear thou up, then, with patience, as did the Apostles endued with firmness, and seek not to accelerate their doom.  For, on the day when they shall see that with which they have been menaced,

It shall be as though they had waited but an hour of the day.  Enough! shall any perish save they who transgress?

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1 See Sura lxviii. p. 32.

2 Of a divine revelation, authorising the worship of other gods than God

3 Abdallah bin Salma, say the commentators.

4 Comp.  John vii. 48.

5 Thus Mischn.  Aboth, v. 21, “at forty years of age a man comes to intelligence.”  This verse refers, it is said by the Sonnites, to Abu Bekr, afterwards Chalif, who embraced Islam in his 40th year.  But this interpretation was probably invented after his accession to power.

6 Lit. suffer loss.

7 The Prophet Houd.

8 That is, Sandhills; at Taief, to which Muhammad had retired in consequence of the opposition, etc., of the Meccans.  Verses 20-31 are probably misplaced, as they interrupt the connection between 19 and 32, but appear to belong to the same period as the rest of the Sura.

9 Thus Ullm. als naheverwandte Götter.  But Wahl, denen sie sich mit gottesdienstlichen Opfer näherten.  Ad appropinquandum (magis ipsi Deo), by intercession.  Mar.  Beidh.

SURA VI.-CATTLE [LXXXIX.]

Mecca.-165 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Praise be to God, who hath created the Heavens and the Earth, and ordained the darkness and the light!  Yet unto their Lord do the infidels give peers!

He it is who created you of clay then decreed the term of your life:  and with Him is another prefixed term for the resurrection.  Yet have ye doubts thereof!

And He is God in the Heavens and on the Earth!  He knoweth your secrets and your disclosures! and He knoweth what ye deserve.

Never did one single sign from among the signs of their Lord come to them, but they turned away from it;

And now, after it hath reached them, have they treated the truth itself as a lie.  But in the end, a message as to that which they have mocked, shall reach them.

See they not how many generations we have destroyed before them?  We had settled them on the earth as we have not settled you, and we sent down the very heavens upon them in copious rains, and we made the rivers to flow beneath their feet:  yet we destroyed them in their sins, and raised up other generations to succeed them.

And had we sent down to thee a Book written on parchment, and they had touched it with their hands, the infidels had surely said, “This is nought but plain sorcery.”