Part 104

16 Lit. men of hand and of sight.

17 Lit. or do our eyes wander from them.

18 See verses 9, 26, above. It seems to have been one of the peculiarities of Muhammad, as a person very deficient in imagination, to dwell upon and repeat the same ideas, with an intensity which is at once an evidence of deep personal conviction and consciousness, of the simple Arabian especially.

19 The connection between the concluding episode and the preceding part of the Sura does not seem very clear. It probably originated at a different but uncertain period.

20 About the creation of man.

21 Comp. Sura [xci.] ii. 28, ff.

22 Comp. Ps. civ. 4.

23 Lit. stoned. See Sura xv. 34, p. 114.

SURA XXXVI.-YA. SIN [LX.]

MECCA.-83 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

YA. SIN.1 By the wise Koran!

Surely of the Sent Ones, Thou,

Upon a right path!

A revelation of the Mighty, the Merciful,

That thou shouldest warn a people whose fathers were not warned and therefore lived in heedlessness!

Just, now, is our sentence2 against most of them; therefore they shall not believe.

On their necks have we placed chains which reach the chin, and forced up are their heads:

Before them have we set a barrier and behind them a barrier, and we have shrouded them in a veil, so that they shall not see.

Alike is it to them if thou warn them or warn them not: they will not believe.

Him only shalt thou really warn, who followeth the monition and feareth the God of mercy in secret: him cheer with tidings of pardon, and of a noble recompense.

Verily, it is We who will quicken the dead, and write down the works which they have sent on before them, and the traces which they shall have left behind them: and everything have we set down in the clear Book of our decrees.3

Set forth to them the instance of the people of the city4 when the Sent Ones came to it.

When we sent two unto them and they charged them both with imposture- therefore with a third we strengthened them: and they said, "Verily we are the Sent unto you of God."

They said, "Ye are only men like us: Nought hath the God of Mercy sent down. Ye do nothing but lie."

They said, "Our Lord knoweth that we are surely sent unto you;

To proclaim a clear message is our only duty."

They said, "Of a truth we augur ill from you:5 if ye desist not we will surely stone you, and a grievous punishment will surely befall you from us."