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This Book is bestowed from on high by God, the Almighty, the Wise.
It is We who have bestowed on you this revelation from on high, stating the truth. Therefore, worship God alone, sincere in your faith in Him.
True devotion is due to God alone. Those who take others besides Him as their protectors say: ‘We worship them for no reason other than that they would bring us nearer to God’. God will judge between them concerning all matters on which they differ. God will not grace with guidance anyone who is an ungrateful liar.
Had God wished to take to Himself a son, He could have chosen anyone He wanted from whatever He creates. Limitless is He in His glory: the One God who conquers all.
He has created the heavens and the earth in accordance with the truth. He causes the night to flow into the day, and the day to flow into the night; and He has made the sun and the moon subservient [to His laws]: each running its course for a set term. He is indeed the Almighty, the All-Forgiving.
He has created you all from a single soul, and from it He fashioned its mate; and He has bestowed on you four kinds of cattle in pairs; and He creates you in your mothers’ wombs, one act of creation after another, in threefold depths of darkness. Such is God, your Lord: to Him belongs all dominion. There is no deity other than Him. How, then, can you lose sight of the truth?
If you disbelieve, God has no need of you; nor is He pleased with disbelief by His servants. If you give thanks, He is pleased with you. No soul will bear the burden of another. In time, to your Lord you all must return, and then He will tell you the truth of all you did. He has full knowledge of what is in people’s hearts.
When man suffers affliction, he cries out to his Lord, turning to Him for help; but once He bestows upon him a favour by His grace, he forgets what he cried and prayed for earlier, and claims that others are equal to God, thus leading others astray from His path. Say [to him]: ‘Enjoy yourself for a while in your disbelief, for you are one of those destined to the Fire’.
How about one who devoutly worships God during the hours of the night prostrating himself or standing in prayer, ever mindful of the life to come, and hoping for his Lord’s mercy? Say: ‘Can those who know and those who do not know be deemed equal?’ Only those who are endowed with insight will take heed.
Say: ‘[Thus speaks God:] You servants of Mine who believe! Fear your Lord! Those who do good in this world will have a good reward. Wide is God’s earth. Those who are patient in adversity will be given their reward in full, beyond reckoning’.
Say: ‘I am commanded to worship God, sincere in my faith in Him alone;
and I am commanded to be the first to submit myself to Him.’
Say: ‘Indeed I would dread, were I to disobey my Lord, the suffering of an awesome day’.
Say: ‘God alone do I worship, sincere in my faith in Him alone.
You can worship whatever you please instead of Him’. Say: ‘True losers indeed are those who shall have lost their own selves and their families on Resurrection Day. Such is the ultimate loss’.
Above them there shall be layers of fire, and layers of fire shall be beneath them. In this way God puts fear into His servants’ hearts: ‘My servants! Fear Me!’
There is good news for those who shun the worship of false deities and turn to God, so give good news to My servants,
who listen carefully to what is said and follow the best of it. These are the ones whom God has graced with His guidance, and these are the ones endowed with insight.
How about one on whom God’s sentence of punishment has been passed? Can you rescue those who are already in the Fire?
As against this, those who are God-fearing will have lofty mansions raised upon mansions high, beneath which running waters flow. This is God’s promise. Never does God fail to fulfil His promise.
Have you not considered how God sends down water from the skies, and then causes it to travel through the earth to form springs? He then brings with it vegetation of different colours; and then it withers and you can see it turning yellow. In the end He causes it to crumble to dust. In all this there is indeed a reminder for those endowed with insight.
How about one whose heart God has opened to Islam, and thus receives light from his Lord? Woe, then, betide those whose hearts harden at the mention of God. These are most obviously in error.
God has bestowed from on high the best of all teachings: a Book that is consistent within itself, repeating its statements [of the truth] in manifold forms. It causes the skins of those who stand in awe of their Lord to shiver, but then their skins and hearts soften at the mention of God. Such is God’s guidance: He guides with it him that wills, whereas the one whom God lets go astray can never find any guide.
How about one who shall have nothing but his bare face to protect him from the awful suffering on Resurrection Day? It will be said to the wrongdoers: ‘Taste now what you have earned’.
Those who lived before them also disbelieved, and so suffering befell them from where they could not perceive.
God gave them a taste of humiliation in this world. Yet much greater will be the suffering of the life to come, if they but knew it!
We have set for people in this Qur'an all sorts of illustrations, so that they may reflect.
It is an Arabic Qur’an, free from distortion, so that people may become conscious of God.
God cites the case of a man who has for his masters several partners at odds with each other, and a man belonging wholly to one person? Can they be deemed equal? All praise is due to God alone, but most of them do not understand.
Indeed you are bound to die, and they too are bound to die;
and then on the Day of Resurrection you all will dispute with one another in the presence of your Lord.
Who could be more wrong than one who invents a lie about God and rejects the truth when it comes to him? Is not there in hell a proper abode for the unbelievers?
It is the one who brings the truth and the one who accepts it as true that are God-fearing.
They will have all that they wish for with their Lord: such is the reward of those who do good.
God will expunge the worst of their deeds and will give them their reward in accordance with the best that they did.
Is not God sufficient for His servant? Yet they would try to frighten you with those who are inferior to Him. He whom God lets go astray can never find any guide;
whereas he whom God guides aright can never be led astray. Is God not mighty, capable of inflicting retribution?
If you ask them who created the heavens and the earth, they will answer: ‘God’. Say: ‘Consider these beings you invoke beside Him: if God wills harm to befall me, could they remove the harm He has inflicted? Or, if He wills that mercy should be bestowed on me, could they withhold His mercy?’ Say: ‘God is enough for me: In Him place their trust those who have a trust to place’.
Say: ‘My people! Do all that may be in your power, and I will do what I can. You shall come to know
who will be visited with humiliating suffering and who shall be smitten by long-lasting suffering’.
We have bestowed on you this Book from on high, setting out the truth for mankind. Whoever follows its guidance does so for his own good, and whoever goes astray shall do so at his own peril. You are not responsible for them.
God takes away people’s souls upon their death, and the souls of the living during their sleep. He keeps with Him the souls of those whose death He has ordained and sends back the others until their appointed time. In all this there are signs for people who reflect.
Have they chosen others besides God to intercede for them? Say: ‘Why, even though they have no power over anything and no understanding?’
Say: ‘All intercession belongs to God alone. His alone is the dominion over the heavens and the earth; and to Him you will all in the end return’.
Whenever God alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who will not believe in the life to come shrink with aversion; but when others are mentioned side by side with Him, they rejoice.
Say: ‘God! Originator of the heaves and the earth! You have knowledge of all that is beyond anyone’s perception and all that anyone may witness. It is You who will judge between Your servants concerning all that over which they differ’.
If the wrongdoers possessed all that is on earth, and twice as much, they would surely offer it all as ransom from the awful suffering on the Day of Resurrection. For God will have made obvious to them something they have never reckoned with.
Obvious to them will have become the evil of what they had done; and they will be overwhelmed by that which they used to deride.
When man suffers affliction, he cries out to Us; but once We bestow upon him a favour by Our grace, he says: ‘I have been given all this by virtue of my knowledge’. By no means! It is but a test, yet most of them do not understand.
Those who lived before their time said the same, but of no avail to them was all that they had ever done:
for the very evil of their deeds recoiled upon them. Similarly, the wrongdoers among these present people will have the evil of their deeds recoil upon them. They will never be able to frustrate [God’s purpose.]
Are they not aware that it is God who grants sustenance in abundance, or gives it sparingly, to whomever He wills? In this there are signs to those who believe.
Say: ‘[Thus speaks God]: You servants of Mine who have transgressed against their own souls! Do not despair of God’s mercy: God forgives all sins; He alone is much-forgiving, ever-merciful.’
Turn towards your Lord and submit to Him before the suffering comes upon you, for then you cannot be helped.
Follow the best that has been revealed to you by your Lord before the suffering comes upon you of a sudden, without your being aware of it,
lest anyone should say: ‘Woe is me for having neglected what is due to God, and for having been one of those who scoffed [at the truth]’;
or lest he should say: ‘If God had but guided me, I would surely have been among the God-fearing’;
or lest he should say, when faced by the suffering [that awaits him]: ‘If only I could have a second chance in life, I will be among those who do good’.
[God will say]: ‘Yes, indeed! My revelations did come to you, but you rejected them. You were filled with false pride and had no faith at all’.
On the Day of Resurrection you will see those who invented lies about God with their faces darkened. Is not there in hell a proper abode for the arrogant?
But God will deliver those who are God-fearing to their place of safety: no harm shall afflict them, nor shall they grieve.
God is the Creator of everything, and of all things He is the Guardian.
His are the keys of the heavens and the earth. Those who deny God’s revelations will surely be the losers.
Say: ‘You ignorant people! Would you bid me worship anyone other than God?’
It has been revealed to you, and to those before you, that if you ever associate partners with God, all your works shall certainly come to nothing, and you shall certainly be among the lost.
You shall worship God alone, and be one of those who give thanks [to Him].
No true understanding of God have they: on the Day of Resurrection, the whole earth will be a mere handful to Him, and the heavens will be rolled up in His right hand. Limitless is He in His glory, and sublimely exalted above anything which they associate as partner with Him.
The Trumpet will be sounded, and all creatures that are in the heavens and the earth will fall down senseless, except those God wills to be spared. It will then be sounded a second time, and they will rise and look around them.
The earth will shine bright with the light of its Lord; the Record of Deeds will be laid open; all the prophets and the witnesses will be brought in. Judgement will be passed on them all in justice, and they will not be wronged;
for every human being will be repaid in full for whatever they have done. He is fully aware of all that they do.
The unbelievers will be led to hell in throngs. When they reach it, its gates will be opened, and its keepers will ask them: ‘Did there not come to you messengers from among yourselves, who recited to you your Lord’s revelations and forewarned you of this day? They will answer: ‘Yes, indeed’. But the sentence of suffering will have already been passed against the unbelievers.
They will be told: ‘Enter the gates of hell; there you will abide’. How vile an abode for the arrogant!
And the believers will be led to paradise in throngs. When they reach it, they shall find its gates wide open; and its keepers will say to them: ‘Peace be to you! Well have you done. Come in: you are here to stay’.
They will say: ‘All praise is due to God who has made His promise to us come true and given us this land as our own. Now we may dwell in paradise as we please’. How excellent is the reward of those who worked hard.
You will see the angels surrounding the Throne, extolling their Lord’s glory and praise. Judgement will have been passed on all in justice, and it will be said: All praise is due to God, the Lord of all the worlds.