Which move swiftly and hide themselves away,
And by the night when it cometh darkening on,
And by the dawn when it brighteneth,
That this is the word of an ill.u.s.trious Messenger,6
Endued with power, having influence with the Lord of the Throne,
Obeyed there by Angels, faithful to his trust,
And your compatriot is not one possessed by djinn;
For he saw him in the clear horizon:7
Nor doth he grapple with heaven"s secrets,8
Nor doth he teach the doctrine of a cursed9 Satan.
Whither then are ye going?
Verily, this is no other than a warning to all creatures;
To him among you who willeth to walk in a straight path:
But will it ye shall not, unless as G.o.d willeth it,10 the Lord of the worlds.
_______________________
1 Involutus fuerit tenebris. Mar. Or, thrown down.
2 Thus Bab. Talm. Erchin, 3. "In the day to come (i.e., of judgment) all the beasts will a.s.semble and come, etc."
3 See Sura xvi. 61; xvii. 33.
4 Like a skin from an animal when flayed. The idea is perhaps borrowed from the Sept. V. of Psalm civ. 2. Vulg. sicut pellem.
5 Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn.
6 Gabriel; of the meaning of whose name the next verse is probably a paraphrase.
7 Sura 1iii. 7.
8 Like a mere Kahin, or soothsayer.
9 Lit. stoned. Sura iii. 31. This vision or hallucination is one of the few clearly stated miracles, to which Muhammad appeals in the Koran. According to the tradition of Ibn-Abbas in Waquidi he was preserved by it from committing suicide by throwing himself down from Mount Hira, and that after it, G.o.d cheered him and strengthened his heart, and one revelation speedily followed another.
10 Comp. the doctrine of predestination in Sura 1xxvi. v. 25 to end.
SURA Lx.x.xIV.-THE SPLITTING ASUNDER [x.x.xIII.]
MECCA.-25 Verses
In the Name of G.o.d, the Compa.s.sionate, the Merciful
WHEN the Heaven shall have SPLIT ASUNDER
And duteously obeyed its Lord;1
And when Earth shall have been stretched out as a plain,
And shall have cast forth what was in her and become empty,
And duteously obeyed its Lord;
Then verily, O man, who desirest to reach thy Lord, shalt thou meet him.
And he into whose right hand his Book shall be given,
Shall be reckoned with in an easy reckoning,
And shall turn, rejoicing, to his kindred.
But he whose Book shall be given him behind his back2
Shall invoke destruction:
But in the fire shall he burn,
For that he lived joyously among his kindred,
Without a thought that he should return to G.o.d.
Yea, but his Lord beheld him.
It needs not therefore that I swear by the sunset redness,
And by the night and its gatherings,
And by the moon when at her full,
That from state to state shall ye be surely carried onward.3
What then hath come to them that they believe not?
And that when the Koran is recited to them they adore not?