Part 52

What? shall ye have male progeny and God female?

This were indeed an unfair partition!

These are mere names: ye and your fathers named them thus: God hath not sent down any warranty in their regard. A mere conceit and their own impulses do they follow. Yet hath "the guidance" from their Lord come to them.

Shall man have whatever he wisheth?

The future and the present are in the hand of God:

And many as are the Angels in the Heavens, their intercession shall be of no avail8

Until God hath permitted it to whom he shall please and will accept.

Verily, it is they who believe not in the life to come, who name the angels with names of females:

But herein they have no knowledge: they follow a mere conceit; and mere conceit can never take the place of truth.

Withdraw then from him who turneth his back on our warning and desireth only this present life.

This is the sum of their knowledge. Truly thy Lord best knoweth him who erreth from his way, and He best knoweth him who hath received guidance.

And whatever is in the Heavens and in the Earth is God's that he may reward those who do evil according to their deeds: and those who do good will He reward with good things.

To those who avoid great crimes and scandals but commit only lighter faults, verily, thy Lord will be diffuse of mercy. He well knew you when he produced you out of the earth, and when ye were embryos in your mother's womb. Assert not then your own purity. He best knoweth who feareth him.

Hast thou considered him who turned his back?

Who giveth little and is covetous?

Is it that he hath the knowledge and vision of the secret things?

Hath he not been told of what is in the pages of Moses?

And of Abraham faithful to his pledge?

That no burdened soul shall bear the burdens of another,

And that nothing shall be reckoned to a man but that for which he hath made efforts:

And that his efforts shall at last be seen in their true light:

That then he shall be recompensed with a most exact recompense,

And that unto thy Lord is the term of all things,

And that it is He who causeth to laugh and to weep,

And that He causeth to die and maketh alive,

And that He hath created the sexes, male and female,

From the diffused germs of life,9

And that with Him is the second creation,