that day ye shall be brought before Him: none of your hidden deeds shall remain hidden:
And he who shall have his book given to him in his right hand, will say to his friends, "Take ye it; read ye my book;
I ever thought that to this my reckoning I should come."
And his shall be a life that shall please him well,
In a lofty garden,
Whose clusters shall be near at hand:
"Eat ye and drink with healthy relish, as the meed of what ye sent on beforehand in the days which are past."
But he who shall have his book given into his left hand, will say, "O that my book had never been given me!
And that I had never known my reckoning!
O that death had made an end of me!
My wealth hath not profited me!
My power hath perished from me!"
"Lay ye hold on him and chain him,
Then at the Hell-fire burn him,
Then into a chain whose length is seventy cubits thrust him;
For he believed not in God, the Great,
And was not careful to feed the poor;
No friend therefore shall he have here this day,
Nor food, but corrupt sores,
Which none shall eat but the sinners."
It needs not that I swear by what ye see,
And by that which ye see not,
That this verily is the word of an apostle worthy of all honour!
And that it is not the word of a poet-how little do ye believe!
Neither is it the word of a soothsayer (Kahin)-how little do ye receive warning!
It is a missive from the Lord of the worlds.
But if Muhammad had fabricated concerning us any sayings,
We had surely seized him by the right hand,
And had cut through the vein of his neck.5
Nor would We have withheld any one of you from him.
But, verily, It (the Koran) is a warning for the God-fearing;
And we well know that there are of you who treat it as a falsehood.
But it shall be the despair of infidels,
For it is the very truth of sure knowledge.
Praise, then, the name of thy Lord, the Great.
1. Thus Beidh., Sale, etc. But with reference to another sense of the root karaa, it may be rendered the day of decision, the day on which man's lot shall be decided.
2. On Ad and Themoud. See Sura vii. 63-77.
3. Lit. God subjected it to himself, availed himself of it against them.
4. El-wakia, the sudden event, the calamity; the woe that must break in upon Heaven and Earth. The same word is used, Sura lvi. 1, and ci. 1, for the Resurrection and Day of Judgment.
5. In allusion to the mode of executing criminals in many eastern countries.
SURA XLIII. THE SCATTERING
MECCA.-60 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
By the clouds1 which scatter with SCATTERING,
And those which bear their load,
And by those which speed lightly along,
And those which apportion by command!
True, indeed, is that with which ye are threatened,
And lo! the judgment will surely come.2
By the star-tracked heaven!
Ye are discordant in what ye say;
But whose turneth him from the truth, is turned from it by a divine decree.
Perish the liars,
Who are bewildered in the depths of ignorance!
They ask, "When this day of judgment?"
On that day they shall be tormented at the fire.
"Taste ye of this your torment, whose speedy coming ye challenged."
But the God-fearing shall dwell amid gardens and fountains,
Enjoying what their Lord hath given them, because, aforetime they were well- doers:
But little of the night was it that they slept,
And at dawn they prayed for pardon,
And gave due share of their wealth to the suppliant and the outcast.
On Earth are signs for men of firm belief,
And also in your own selves: Will ye not then behold them?
The Heaven hath sustenance for you, and it containeth that which you are promised.
By the Lord then of the heaven and of the earth, I swear that this is the truth, even as ye speak yourselves.3
Hath the story reached thee of Abraham's honoured guests?4
When they went in unto him and said, "Peace!" he replied, "Peace:-they are strangers."
And he went apart to his family, and brought a fatted calf,
And set it before them. He said, "Eat ye not?"
And he conceived a fear of them. They said to him, "Fear not;" and announced to him a wise son.
His wife came up with outcry: she smote her face and said, "What I, old and barren!"
They said, "Thus saith thy Lord. He truly is the Wise, the Knowing."
Said he, "And what, O messengers, is your errand?"
They said, "To a wicked people are we sent,
To hurl upon them stones of clay,
Destined5 by thy Lord for men guilty of excesses."
And we brought forth the believers who were in the city:
But we found not in it but one family of Muslims.
And signs we left in it for those who dread the afflictive chastisement,-
And in Moses: when we sent him to Pharaoh with manifest power:
But relying on his forces6 he turned his back and said, "Sorcerer, or