Part 34

And damsels with swelling breasts, their peers in age,

And a full cup:

There shall they hear no vain discourse nor any falsehood:

A recompense from thy Lord-sufficing gift!-

Lord of the heavens and of the earth, and of all that between3 them lieth-the God of Mercy! But not a word shall they obtain from Him.

On the day whereon the Spirit4 and the Angels shall be ranged in order, they shall not speak: save he whom the God of Mercy shall permit, and who shall say that which is right.

This is the sure day. Whoso then will, let him take the path of return to his Lord.

Verily, we warn you of a chastisement close at hand:

The day on which a man shall see the deeds which his hands have sent before him; and when the unbeliever shall say, "Oh! would I were dust!"

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1 Of the Resurrection. With regard to the date of this Sura, we can only be guided (I) by the general style of the earlier portion (to verse 37, which is analogous to that of the early Meccan Suras; (2) by verse 17, which pre- supposes lxxvii. 12; (3) by the obviously later style of verse 37 to the end.

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: