Part 46

"A time indeed there was," will they say, "when we were full of care as to the future lot of our families;

But kind hath God been to us, and from the pestilential torment hath he preserved us;

For, heretofore we called upon Him-and He is the Beneficent, the Merciful."

Warn thou, then. For thou by the favour of thy Lord art neither soothsayer nor possessed.

Will they say, "A poet! let us await some adverse turn of his fortune?"

SAY, wait ye, and in sooth I too will wait with you.

Is it their dreams which inspire them with this? or is it that they are a perverse people?

Will they say, "He hath forged it (the Koran) himself?" Nay, rather it is that they believed not.

Let them then produce a discourse like it, if they speak the Truth.

Were they created by nothing? or were they the creators of themselves?

Created they the Heavens and Earth? Nay, rather, they have no faith.

Hold they thy Lord's treasures? Bear they the rule supreme?

Have they a ladder for hearing the angels? Let any one who hath heard them bring a clear proof of it.

Hath God daughters and ye sons?

Asketh thou pay of them? they are themselves weighed down with debts.

Have they such a knowledge of the secret things that they can write them down?

Desire they to lay snares for thee? But the snared ones shall be they who do not believe.

Have they any God beside God? Glory be to God above what they join with Him.

And should they see a fragment of the heaven falling down, they would say, "It is only a dense cloud."

Leave them then until they come face to face with the day when they shall swoon away:

A day in which their snares shall not at all avail them, neither shall they be helped.

And verily, beside this is there a punishment for the evildoers: but most of them know it not.

Wait thou patiently the judgment of thy Lord, for thou art in our eye; and celebrate the praise of thy Lord when thou risest up,

And in the night-season: Praise him when the stars are setting.

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1 Of the Caaba.

2 Comp. Psalm lxviii. 9.

3 The more prosaic style of this verse indicates a later origin than the context. Muir places the whole Sura in what he terms the fourth stage of Meccan Suras.