2 See Sura ii. 27.  This is the title given by the Talmudists to the fifth of the seven heavens.

3 This phrase is of constant recurrence in the Talmud.  Maimonides, Yad Hach. i. 3, makes it one of the positive commands of the Rabbins to believe “that there exists a first Being . . . and that all things existing, Heaven and Earth, and whatever is between them, exist only through the truth of his existence.”

4 Gabriel.

SURA LXXXVIII.-THE OVERSHADOWING [XXXVIII.]

Mecca.-26 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Hath the tidings of the day that shall overshadow, reached thee?

Downcast on that day shall be the countenances of some,

Travailing and worn,

Burnt at the scorching fire,

Made to drink from a fountain fiercely boiling.

No food shall they have but the fruit of Darih,1

Which shall not fatten, nor appease their hunger.

Joyous too, on that day, the countenances of others,

Well pleased with their labours past,

In a lofty garden: 

No vain discourse shalt thou hear therein: 

Therein shall be a gushing fountain,

Therein shall be raised couches,

And goblets ready placed,

And cushions laid in order,

And carpets spread forth.

Can they not look up to the clouds, how they are created;

And to the heaven how it is upraised;

And to the mountains how they are rooted;

And to the earth how it is outspread?

Warn thou then; for thou art a warner only: 

Thou hast no authority over them: 

But whoever shall turn back and disbelieve,

God shall punish him with the greater punishment.

Verily to Us shall they return;

Then shall it be Our’s to reckon with them.

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1 The name of a bitter, thorny shrub.

SURA LXXXIX.-THE DAYBREAK [XXXIX.]

Mecca.-30 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

By the daybreak and ten nights.1

By that which is double and that which is single,

By the night when it pursues its course!

Is there not in this an oath becoming a man of sense?

Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with Ad,

At Irem adorned with pillars,

Whose like have not been reared in these lands!

And with Themoud who hewed out the rocks in the valley;

And with Pharaoh the impaler;

Who all committed excesses in the lands,

And multiplied wickedness therein.

Wherefore thy Lord let loose on them the scourge of chastisement,2

For thy Lord standeth on a watch tower.