Part 111

Think they that we hear not their secrets and their private talk? Yes, and our angels who are at their sides write them down.

SAY: If the God of Mercy had a son, the first would I be to worship him:

But far be the Lord of the Heavens and of the Earth, the Lord of the Throne, from that which they impute to Him!

Wherefore let them alone, to plunge on, and sport, until they meet the day with which they are menaced.

He who is God in the Heavens is God in earth also: and He is the Wise, the Knowing.

And Blessed be He whose is the kingdom of the Heavens and of the Earth and of all that is between them; for with Him is the knowledge of the Hour, and to Him shall ye be brought back.

The gods whom they call upon beside Him shall not be able to intercede for others: they only shall be able who bore witness to the truth and21 knew it."

If thou ask them who hath created them, they will be sure to say, "God." How then hold they false opinions?

And one22 saith, "O Lord! verily these are people who believe not."

Turn thou then from them, and say, "Peace:" In the end they shall know their folly.

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1 See Sura lxviii. I, p. 32.

2 Lit. it is in the Mother of the Book, i.e. the original of the Koran, preserved before God.

3 That is, of the birth of a female.

4 Lit. which he imputeth to the God of Mercy, as his likeness.

5 To authorise angel-worship.

6 Supply, Mecca and Taief, we would have received it.

7 Lit. mercy, i.e. the gift and office of prophecy.

8 Lit. the two Easts, by which some understand the distance between the two solstices.

9 Comp. Suras xl. 77; xxiii. 97; x. 47; xxix. 53; xxxvii. 179; xiii. 42. These passages clearly show that Muhammad had at this period-towards the close of his Meccan period-full faith in his ultimate success, and in the fulfilment of his menaces against the unbelievers.

10 Lit. ye shall be examined in the end.

11 This verse is said (see Nöld. p. 100, n.) to have been revealed in the temple at Jerusalem on the occasion of the night journey thither. See also Weil's Muhammed der Prophet, p. 374.

12 Lit. sister.

13 See Sura [lxxix.] xxviii. 39, n.

14 Comp. Gen. xli. 42.

15 This was a captious objection made to Muhammad by the idolaters of Mecca when he condemned their gods (Sura xxi. 98), as if they had said, "Jesus is worshipped as a God by the Christians: does he come under your anathema equally with our idols? we shall be content for our gods to be with him."

16 That is, as we caused Jesus to be born without a human father.

17 At his return to this earth. Some refer this to the Koran as revealing the last Hour. Lit. He (or It) is for knowledge of the Hour.