O our Lord! we have indeed heard the voice of one that called.  He called us to the faith-’Believe on your Lord’-and we have believed.

O our Lord! forgive us then our sin, and hide away from us our evil deeds, and cause us to die with the righteous.

O our Lord! and give us what thou hast promised us by thine apostles, and put us not to shame on the day of the resurrection.  Verily, Thou wilt not fail thy promise.”

And their Lord answereth them, “I will not suffer the work of him among you that worketh, whether of male or female, to be lost.  The one of you is the issue of the other.57

And they who have fled their country and quitted their homes and suffered in my cause, and have fought and fallen, I will blot out their sins from them, and I will bring them into gardens beneath which the streams do flow.”

A recompense from God! and God! with His is the perfection of recompense!

Let not prosperity in the land58 on the part of those who believe not, deceive thee.  ’Tis but a brief enjoyment!  Then shall Hell be their abode; and wretched the bed!

But as to those who fear their Lord-for them are the gardens ’neath which the rivers flow:  therein shall they abide for aye.  Such their reception with God-and that which is with God is best for the righteous.

Among the people of the Book are those who believe in God, and in what He hath sent down to you, and in what He hath sent down to them, humbling themselves before God.  They barter not the signs of God for a mean price.

These! their recompense awaiteth them with their Lord:  aye!  God is swift to take account.

O ye who believe! be patient, and vie in patience, and be firm, and fear God, that it may be well with you.

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1 Verses 1-87 probably belong to the period between the battle of Bedr and Hej. 6.-Muhammad supposed Imran or Amran to be the father of the Virgin Mary (Sura [cix.] lxvi. 12)-Mary and Elizabeth to be sisters; who, with Jesus, John, and Zacharias, make up the family of Imran.  It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Muhammad is guilty of the anachronism of confounding Miriam with the Virgin Mary.  On the other hand is the difficulty of conceiving that as the sequence of time and fact is observed with tolerable accuracy in regard to the main features of Jewish and Christian History, he should have fallen into so serious an error, or have so inadvertently adopted, as Mr. Muir supposes, the phraseology of his Jewish informants (amongst whom the only well-known Mary (Miriam) was the daughter of Imran and the sister of Moses) as to have overlooked the discrepancy in their respective dates.  But it is possible that Muhammad believed, as some Muslim writers assert, that Miriam’s soul and body were miraculously preserved till the time of Jesus in order to become Mary his mother.  Certainly the Talmudists fabled that the Angel of Death and the worm of corruption had no power over Miriam.  Comp.  Babha Bathra, 17.  Jos.  Ant. iv. 4, 6.