A Meccan sura that affirms God’s power and Creation and contrasts this with the powerlessness and uselessness of the ‘partners’ set up by the idolaters. The sura warns the idolaters of their punishment and comforts the Prophet through mention of previous messengers who were also rejected as liars. The great rewards that await believers are described.
In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy
God Has Power Over All Things
1 Praise be to God, Creator of the heavens and earth, who made angels messengers with two, three, four [pairs of] wings. He adds to creation as He will: God has power over everything. 2 No one can withhold the blessing God opens up for people, nor can anyone but Him release whatever He withholds: He is the Almighty, the All Wise. 3 People, remember God’s grace towards you. Is there any creator other than God to give you sustenance from the heavens and earth? There is no god but Him. How can you be so deluded?
4 If they call you a liar [Prophet], many messengers before you were also called liars: it is to God that all things will be returned. 5 People! God’s promise is true, so do not let the present life deceive you. Do not let the Deceiver deceive you about God: 6 Satan is your enemy––so treat him as an enemy––and invites his followers only to enter the blazing fire. 7 Those who disbelieve will be punished severely; those who believe and do good deeds will be forgiven, and richly rewarded. 8 What about those whose evil deeds are made alluring to them so that they think they are good? God leaves whoever He will to stray and guides whoever He will. [Prophet], do not waste your soul away with regret for them: God knows exactly what they do.
9 It is God who sends forth the winds; they raise up the clouds; We drive them to a dead land and with them revive the earth after its death: such will be the Resurrection. 10 If anyone desires power, all power belongs to God; good words rise up to Him and He lifts up the righteous deed, but a severe torment awaits those who plot evil and their plotting will come to nothing.
God the Creator
11 It is God who created you from dust and later from a drop of fluid; then He made you into two sexes; no female conceives or gives birth without His knowledge; no person grows old or has his life cut short, except in accordance with a Record: all this is easy for God.
12 The two bodies of water are not alike– one is palatable, sweet, and pleasant to drink, the other salty and bitter– yet from each you eat fresh fish and extract ornaments to wear, and in each you see the ships ploughing their course so that you may seek God’s bounty and be grateful. 13 He makes the night merge into the day and the day into the night; He has subjected the sun and the moon– each runs for an appointed term. Such is God your Lord: all control belongs to Him. Those you invoke beside Him do not even control the skin of a date stone; 14 if you call them they cannot hear you; if they could hear, they could not answer you; on the Day of Resurrection they will disown your idolatry. None can inform you [Prophet] like the One who is all aware.
God is Free of All Needs
15 People, it is you who stand in need of God– God needs nothing and is worthy of all praise– 16 if He wills, He can do away with you and bring in a new creation, 17 that is not difficult for God. 18 No burdened soul will bear the burden of another: even if a heavily laden soul should cry for help, none of its load will be carried, not even by a close relative. But you [Prophet] can only warn those who fear their Lord, though they cannot see Him, and keep up the prayer– whoever purifies himself does so for his own benefit– everything returns to God. 19 The blind and the seeing are not alike, 20 nor are darkness and light; 21 shade and heat are not alike, 22 nor are the living and the dead. God makes anyone He wills hear [His message]: you cannot make those in their graves hear. 23 You are only here to warn them– 24 We have sent you with the Truth as a bearer of good news and warning– every community has been sent a warner. 25 If they call you a liar, their predecessors did the same: messengers came to them with clear signs, scriptures, and enlightening revelation 26 and afterwards I seized the disbelievers– how terrible My punishment was!
Abundant Blessings
27 Have you [Prophet] not considered how God sends water down from the sky and that We produce with it fruits of varied colors; that there are in the mountains layers of white and red of various hues, and jet black; 28 that there are various colors among human beings, wild animals, and livestock too? It is those of His servants who have knowledge who stand in true awe of God. God is almighty, most forgiving. 29 Those who recite God’s scripture, keep up the prayer, give secretly and openly from what We have provided for them, may hope for a trade that will never decline: 30 He will repay them in full, and give them extra from His bounty. He is most forgiving, most appreciative.
God Knows the Unseen and Sees Everything
38 God knows all that is hidden in the heavens and earth; He knows the thoughts contained in the heart; 39 it is He who made you [people] successors to the land. Those who deny the truth will bear the consequences: their denial will only make them more odious to their Lord, and add only to their loss. 40 Say, ‘Consider those “partners” of yours that you call upon beside God. Show me! What part of the earth did they create? What share of the heavens do they possess?’ Have We given them a book that contains clear evidence? No indeed! The idolaters promise each other only delusion.
41 God keeps the heavens and earth from vanishing; if they did vanish, no one else could stop them. God is most forbearing, most forgiving. 42 [The idolaters] swore their most solemn oath that, if someone came to warn them, they would be more rightly guided than any [other] community, but when someone did come they turned yet further away, 43 became more arrogant in the land, and intensified their plotting of evil– the plotting of evil only rebounds on those who plot. Do they expect anything but what happened to earlier people? You will never find any change in God’s practice; you will never find any deviation there. 44 Have they not travelled in the land and seen how those before them met their end, although they were superior to them in strength? God is not to be frustrated by anything in the heavens or on the earth: He is all knowing, all powerful. 45 If God were to punish people [at once] for the wrong they have done, there would not be a single creature left on the surface of the earth. He gives them respite for a stated time and, whenever their time comes, God has been watching His servants.
The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)
The Qur'an / a new translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, copyright © 2004 Oxford World's Classics (Oxford University Press). Used by permission. All rights reserved.