as equal unto God, lest thou be cast into hell, reproved and rejected. Hath your Lord preferably granted unto you sons, and taken for himself daughters from among the angels? Verily in asserting this ye utter a grievous saying. And now have we used various arguments and repetitions in this Korân, that they may be warned; yet it only rendereth them more disposed to fly from the truth. Say unto the idolaters, If there were other gods with him, as ye say, they would surely seek an occasion of making some attempt against the possessor of the throne: God forbid! and far, very far, be that from him which they utter! The seven heavens praise him, and the earth, and all who are therein: neither is there anything which doth not celebrate his praise; but ye understand not their celebration thereof: he is gracious and merciful. When thou readest the Korân, we place between thee and those who believe not in the life to come, a dark veil; and we put coverings over their hearts, lest they should understand it, and in their ears thickness of hearing. And when thou makest mention, in repeating the Korân, of thy Lord only, they turn ther backs, flying the doctrine of his unity. We well know with what design they hearken, when they hearken unto thee, and when they privately discourse together: when the ungodly say, Ye follow no other than a madman. Behold! what epithets they bestow on thee. But they are deceived; neither can they find any just occasion to reproach thee. They also say, After we shall have become bones and dust, shall we surely be raised a new creature? Answer, Be ye stones, or iron, or some creature more improbable in your opinions to be raised to life. But they will say, Who shall restore us to life? Answer, He who created you the first time and they will wag their heads at thee, saying, When shall this be? Answer, Peradventure it is nigh. On that day shall God call you forth from your sepulchres, and ye shall obey, with celebration of his praise; and ye shall think that ye tarried but a little while. Speak unto my servants, that they speak mildly unto the unbelievers, lest ye exasperate them; for Satan soweth discord among them, and Satan is a declared enemy unto man. Your Lord well knoweth you; if he pleaseth, he will have mercy on you, or, if he pleaseth, he will punish you: and we have not sent thee to be a steward over them. Thy Lord well knoweth all persons in heaven and on earth. We have bestowed peculiar favours on some of the prophets, preferably to others; and we gave unto David the psalms. Say, Call upon those whom ye imagine to be gods besides him; yet they will not be able to free you from harm, or to turn it on others. Those whom ye invoke, do themselves desire to be admitted to a near conjunction with their Lord; striving which of them shall approach nearest unto him: they also hope for his mercy, and dread his punishment; for the punishment of thy Lord is terrible. There is no city but we will destroy the same before the day of resurrection, or we will punish it with a grievous punishment. This is written in the book of our eternal decrees. Nothing hindered us from

sending thee with miracles, except that the former nations have charged them with imposture. We gave unto the tribe of Thamûd, at their demand, the she-camel visible to their sight; yet they dealt unjustly with her: and we send not a prophet with miracles, but to strike terror. Remember when we said unto thee, Verily thy Lord encompasseth men by his knowledge and power. We have appointed the vision which we showed thee, and also the tree cursed in the Korân, only for an occasion of dispute unto men, and to strike them with terror; but it shall cause them to transgress only the more enormously. And remember when we said unto the angels, Worship Adam; and they all worshipped him except Eblis, who said, Shall I worship him whom thou hast created of clay? And he said, What thinkest thou, as to this man whom thou hast honoured above me? verily, if thou grant me respite until the day of resurrection, I will extirpate his offspring, except a few. God answered, Begone, I grant thee respite: but whosoever of them shall follow thee, hell shall surely be your reward; an ample reward for your demerits! And entice to vanity such of them as thou canst, by thy voice; and assault them on all sides with thy horsemen and thy footmen; and partake with them in their riches, and their children; and make them promises; (but the devil shall make them no other than deceitful promises :) as to my servants, thou shalt have no power over them; for thy Lord is a sufficient protector of those who trust in him. It is your Lord who driveth forward the ships for you in the sea, that ye may seek to enrich yourselves of his abundance by commerce; for he is merciful towards you. When a misfortune befalleth you at sea, the false deities whom ye invoke are forgotten by you, except him alone: yet when he bringeth you safe to dry land, ye retire afar off from him, and return to you idols; for man is ungrateful. Are ye therefore secure that he will not cause the dry land to swallow you up, or that he will not send against you a whirlwind driving the sands to overwhelm you? then shall ye find none to protect you. Or are ye secure that he will not cause you again to commit yourselves to the sea another time, and send against you a tempestuous wind, and drown you for that ye have been ungrateful? then shall ye find none to defend you against us, in that distress. And now have we honoured the children of Adam by sundry peculiar privileges and endowments; and we have given them conveniences of carriage by land and by sea, and have provided food for them of good things; and we have preferred them before many of our creatures which we have created, by granting them great prerogatives. On a certain day we will call all men to judgment with their respective leader: and whosoever shall have his book given him into his right hand, they shall read their book with joy and satisfaction; and they shall not be wronged a hair. And whoever hath been blind in this life, shall be also blind in the next, and shall wander more widely from the path of salvation. It wanted little but the unbelievers had tempted thee to

swerve from the instructions which we had revealed unto thee, that thou shouldest devise concerning us a different thing: and then would they have taken thee for their friend: and unless we had confirmed thee, thou hadst certainly been very near inclining unto them a little. Then would we surely have caused thee to taste the punishment of life, and the punishment of death; and thou shouldest not have found any to protect thee against us. The unbelievers had likewise almost caused thee to depart the land, that they might have expelled thee thence; but then should they not have tarried therein after thee, except a little while. This is the method of dealing which we have prescribed ourselves in respect to our apostles, whom we have already sent before thee: and thou shalt not find any change in our prescribed method. Regularly perform thy prayer at the declension of the sun, at the first darkness of the night, and the prayer of daybreak; for the prayer of daybreak is borne witness unto by the angels. And watch some part of the night in the same exercise, as a work of supererogation for thee; peradventure thy Lord will raise thee to an honourable station. And say, O Lord, cause me to enter with a favourable entry, and cause me to come forth with a favourable com ing forth; and grant me from thee an assisting power. And say, Truth is come, and falsehood is vanished: for falsehood is of short continuance. We send down of the Korân that which is a medicine and a mercy unto the true believers, but it shall only increase the perdition of the unjust. When we bestow favours on man, he retireth and withdraweth himself ungratefully from us: but when evi! toucheth him, he despaireth of our mercy. Say, Every one acteth after his own manner: but your Lord best knoweth who is most truly directed in his way. They will ask thee concerning the spirit: answer, The spirit was created at the command of my Lord: but ye have no knowledge given unto you, except a little. If we pleased, we should certainly take away that which we have revealed unto thee; in such case thou couldest not find any to assist thee therein against us, unless through mercy from thy Lord; for his favour towards thee hath been great. Say, Verily if men and genii were purposely assembled, that they might produce a book like this Korân, they could not produce one like unto it, although the one of them assisted the other. And we have variously propounded unto men in this Korân, every kind of figurative argument; but the greater part of men refuse to receive it, merely out of infidelity. And they say, We will by no means believe on thee, until thou cause a spring of water to gush forth for us out of the earth; or thou have a garden of palm-trees and vines, and thou cause rivers to spring forth from the midst thereof in abundance; or thou cause the heaven to fall down upon us, as thou hast given out, in pieces: or thou bring down God and the angels to vouch for thee; or thou have a house of gold; or thou ascend by a ladder to heaven: neither will we believe thy ascending thither alone, until thou cause a book to descend unto

us, bearing witness of thee, which we may read Answer, My Lord be praised! Am I other than a man, sent as an apostle? And nothing hindereth men from believing, when a direction is come unto them, except that they say, Hath God sent a man for his apostle? Answer, If the angels had walked on earth as familiar inhabitants thereof, we had surely sent down unto them from heaven an angel fot our apostle. Say, God is a sufficient witness between me and you for he knoweth and regardeth his servants. Whom God shall direct, he shall be the rightly directed, and whom he shall cause to err thou shalt find none to assist, besides him. And we will gather them together on the day of resurrection, creeping on their faces, blind, and dumb, and deaf: their abode shall be hell, so often as the fire there of shall be extinguished, we will rekindle a burning flame to torment them. This shall be their reward, because they disbelieve in our signs, and say, When we shall have been reduced to bones and dust, shall we surely be raised new creatures? Do they not perceive that God, who created the heavens and the earth, is able to create other bodies, like their present? And he hath appointed them a limited term, there is no doubt thereof: but the ungodly reject the truth, merely out of unbelief. Say, If ye possessed the treasures of the mercy of my Lord, ye would surely refrain from using them, for fear of spending them, for man is covetous. We heretofore gave unto Moses the power of working nine evident signs. And do thou ask the children of Israel as to the story of Moses; when he came unto them, and Pharaoh said unto him, Verily I esteem thee, O Moses, to be deluded by sorcery. Moses answered, Thou well knowest that none hath sent down these evident signs except the Lord of heaven and earth; and I surely esteem thee, O Pharaoh, a lost man. Wherefore Pharaoh sought to drive them out of the land; but we drowned him, and all those who were with him. And we said. unto the children of Israel, after his destruction, Dwell ye in the land: and when the promise of the next life shall come to be fulfilled, we will bring you both promiscuously to judgment. We have sent down the Korân with truth, and it hath descended with truth: and we have not sent thee otherwise than to be a bearer of good tidings, and a denouncer of threats. And we have divided the Korân, revealing it by parcels, that thou mightest read it unto men with deliberation, and we have sent it down, causing it to descend as occasion required. Say, Whether ye believe therein, or do not believe, verily those who have been favoured with the knowledge of the scriptures which were revealed before it, when the same is rehearsed unto them, fall down on their faces, worshipping, and say, Our Lord be praised, for that the pro mise of our Lord is surely fulfilled! And they fall down on their faces, weeping; and the hearing thereof increaseth their humility. Say, Call upon God, or call on the Merciful: by whichsoever of the two names ye invoke him, it is equal; for he hath most excellent names. Pronounce not thy prayer aloud, neither pronounce it with

too low a voice, but follow a middle way between these: and say, Praise be unto God, who hath not begotten any child; who hath no partner in the kingdom, nor hath any to protect him from contempt: and magnify him by proclaiming his greatness.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ENTITLED, THE CAVE; REVEALED AT MECCA.

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

PRAISE be unto God, who hath sent down unto his servant the book of the Korân, and hath not inserted therein any crookedness, but hath made it a straight rule that he should threaten a grievous punishment unto the unbelievers, from his presence; and should bear good tidings unto the faithful, who work righteousness, that they shall receive an excellent reward, namely, paradise, wherein they shall remain for ever and that he should warn those who say, God hath begotten issue; of which matter they have no knowledge neither had their fathers. A grievous saying it is, which proceedeth from their mouths they speak no other than a lie. Peradventure thou wilt kill thyself with grief after them, out of thy earnest zeal for their conversion, if they believe not in this new revelation of the Korân. Verily we have ordained whatsoever is on the earth for the ornament thereof, that we might make trial of men, and see which of them excelleth in works: and we will surely reduce whatever is thereon, to dry dust. Dost thou consider that the companions of the cave, and Al Rakim, were one of our signs, and a great miracle? When the young men took refuge in the cave, they said, O Lord, grant us mercy from before thee, and dispose our business for us to a right issue. Wherefore we struck their ears with deafness, so that they slept without disturbance in the cave for a great number of years then we awakened them, that we might know which of the two parties was more exact in computing the space which they had re mained there. We will relate unto thee their history with truth. Verily they were young men who had believed in their Lord; and we had abundantly directed them and we fortified their hearts with constancy when they stood before the tyrant; and they said, Our Lord is the Lord of Heaven and earth we will by no means call on any god besides him, for then should we surely utter an extravagance. These our fellow people have taken other gods, besides him; although they bring no demonstrative argument for them: and who is more unjust than he who deviseth a lie concerning God? And they said the one to the other, When ye shall separate yourselves from them, and from the deities which they worship, except God, fly into the cave your Lord will pour his mercy on you abundantly, and will dispose your business for you to advantage. And thou mightest have