A. J. Arberry - XLVI The Sand-Dunes lyrics

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compa**ionate 46:1 Ha Mim The sending down of the Book is from God, the All-mighty, the All-wise. We have not created the heavens and the earth, and what between them is, save with the truth and a stated term; but the unbelievers are turning away from that they were warned of. Say: 'Have you considered that you call upon apart from God? Show me what they have created of the earth; or have they a partnership in the heavens? Bring me a Book before this, or some remnant of a knowledge, if you speak truly.' And who is further astray than he who calls, apart from God, upon such a one as shall not answer him till the Day of Resurrection? 46:5 Such as are heedless of their calling, and when mankind are mustered, shall be enemies to them, and shall deny their service. And when Our signs are recited to them, clear signs, the unbelievers say to the truth when it has come to them, 'This is manifest sorcery.' Or do they say, 'He has forged it'? Say: 'If I have forged it, you have no power to help me against God. He knows very well what you are pressing upon; He suffices as a witness between me and you; He is the All-forgiving, the All-compa**ionate.' Say: 'I am not an innovation among the Messengers, and I know not what shall be done with me or with you. I only follow what is revealed to me; I am only a clear warner.' Say: 'Have you considered? If it be from God, and you disbelieve in it, and a witness from among the Children of Israel hears witness to its like, and believes, and you wax proud, God guides not the people of the evildoers. 46:10 The unbelievers say, as regards the believers, 'If it had been aught good, they had not outstripped us to it.' And since they are not guided by it, certainly they will say, 'This is an old calumny!' Yet before it was the Book of Moses for a model and a mercy; and this is a Book confirming, in Arabic tongue, to warn the evildoers, and good tidings to the good-doers. Surely those who say, 'Our Lord is God' and then go straight, no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow. Those are the inhabitants of Paradise, therein dwelling forever, as a recompense for that they have been doing. We have charged man, that he be kind to his parents; his mother bore him painfully, and painfully she gave birth to him; his bearing and his weaning are thirty months. Until, when he is fully grown, and reaches forty years, he says, 'O my Lord, dispose me that I may be thankful for Thy blessing wherewith Thou hast blessed me and my father and mother, and that I may do righteousness well-pleasing to Thee; and make me righteous also in my seed. Behold, I repent to Thee, and am among those that surrender.' 46:15 Those are they from whom We shall accept the best of what they have done, and We shall pa** over their evil deeds. They are among the inhabitants of Paradise -- the promise of the very truth, which they were promised. But he who says to his father and his mother, 'Fie upon you! Do you promise me that I shall be brought forth, when already generations have pa**ed away before me?' while they call upon God for succour -- 'Woe upon thee! Believe; surely God's promise is true'; then he says, 'This is naught but the fairy-tales of the ancients' -- such men are they against whom has been realized the Word concerning nations that pa**ed away before them, men and jinn alike; they were losers. All shall have their degrees, according to what they have wrought, and that He may pay them in full for their works, and they not being wronged. Upon the day when the unbelievers are exposed to the Fire: 'You dissipated your good things in your present life, and you took your enjoyment in them; therefore today you shall be recompensed with the chastisement of humiliation for that you waxed proud in the earth without right, and for your ungodliness. 46:20 And remember the brother of Ad, when he warned his people beside the sand-dunes -- and already warners had pa**ed away alike before him and behind him -- saying, 'Serve none but God! Truly I fear for you the chastisement of a dreadful day. They said, 'What, hast thou come to pervert us from our gods? Then bring us that thou promisest us, if indeed thou speakest truly.' He said, 'Knowledge is only with God, and I deliver to you the Message with which I was sent; but I see you are an ignorant people.' Then, when they saw it as a sudden cloud coming towards their valleys, they said, 'This is a cloud, that shall give us rain!' 'Not so; rather it is that you sought to hasten -- a wind, wherein is a painful chastisement, destroying everything by the commandment of its Lord.' So in the morning there was naught to be seen but their dwelling-places. Even so do We recompense the people of the sinners. 46:25 And We had established them in that wherein We have not established you, and We appointed for them hearing, and sight, and hearts; and yet their hearing, their sight and their hearts availed them nothing, since they denied the signs of God, and they were encompa**ed by that they mocked at. And We destroyed the cities about you, and We turned about the signs, that haply they would return. Then why did those not help them that they had taken to themselves as mediators, gods apart from God? Not so; but they went astray from them, and that was their calumny, and what they had been forging. And when We turned to thee a company of jinn giving ear to the Koran; and when they were in its presence they said, 'Be silent!' Then, when it was finished, they turned back to their people, warning. They said, 'Our people, we have heard a Book that was sent down after Moses, confirming what was before it, guiding to the truth and to a straight path. 46:30 O our people, answer God's summoner, and believe in Him, and He will forgive you some of your sins, and protect you from a painful chastisement. Whosoever answers not God's summoner cannot frustrate God in the earth, and he has no protectors apart from Him; those are in manifest error. What, have they not seen that God who created the heavens and earth, not being wearied by creating them, is able to give life to the dead? Yes indeed; He is powerful over everything. Upon the day when the unbelievers are exposed to the Fire: 'Is not this the truth?' They shall say, 'Yes, by our Lord!' He shall say, 'Then taste the chastisement of your unbelief!' So be thou patient, as the Messengers possessed of constancy were also patient. Seek not to hasten it for them -- it shall be as if on the day they see that they are promised, 46:35 they had not tarried but for an hour of a single day. A Message to be delivered! And shall any be destroyed but the people of the ungodly?