Part 55

For him who asketh, and for him who is ashamed3 to beg;

And who own the judgment-day a truth,

And who thrill with dread at the chastisement of their Lord-

For there is none safe from the chastisement of their Lord-

And who control their desires,

(Save with their wives or the slaves whom their right hands have won, for there they shall be blameless;

But whoever indulge their desires beyond this are transgressors);

And who are true to their trusts and their engagements,

And who witness uprightly,

And who keep strictly the hours of prayer:

These shall dwell, laden with honours, amid gardens.

But what hath come to the unbelievers that they run at full stretch around thee,

On the right hand and on the left, in bands?

Is it that every man of them would fain enter that garden of delights?

Not at all. We have created them, they know of what.

It needs not that I swear by the Lord of the East and of the West4 that we have power.

To replace them with better than themselves: neither are we to be hindered.

Wherefore let them flounder on and disport them, till they come face to face with their threatened day,

The day on which they shall flock up out of their graves in haste like men who rally to a standard:-

Their eyes downcast; disgrace shall cover them. Such their threatened day.

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1 Lit. asking one asked; probably some unbeliever, with reference to the opening of Sura lvi., p. 60, or like statements in some previous Sura.

2 The expression is hyperbolical, and, as such, identical with Sura [lxx.] xxxii. 4. Compare also Sura xcvii., p. 37. where the descent is said to take place in a single night.

3 Lit. forbidden or prevented by shame.

4 See next Sura. v. 16.

SURA LV.-THE MERCIFUL [XLVIII.]

MECCA.-78 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful