Meccan: it consists of 182 verses, revealed after [sūrat] al-An‘ām.

By those who are ranged in ranks — [by] the angels who range their souls in worship or their wings in the air awaiting their orders;

and the drivers who drive [away], the angels who drive the clouds;

and those who recite, that is to say, the readers of the Qur’ān, they recite it, by way remembrance (dhikran is a verbal noun referring to [the action of] al-tāliyāt, ‘those who recite’).

Indeed your God, O people of Mecca, is certainly One,

Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, and Lord of the sun’s risings, that is, as well as the sun’s settings — each day it [the sun] has a rising and a setting.

We have indeed adorned the lowest heaven with an adornment, the stars, that is to say, [adorned] with their light or with them [the stars] (the genitive annexation [bi-zīnati’l-kawākib] is for explication; similarly [explicative] is the reading of bi-zīnatin, ‘with an adornment’, with nunation, [the adornment] explained as being ‘the stars’);

and to guard (wa-hifzan is in the accusative because of an implied verb) that is to say, ‘We have guarded it with meteors’, from every (min kulli is semantically connected to the implied verb) any rebellious devil, who is a transgressor, in rebellion against obedience.

They, namely, the devils (lā yasma‘ūna, this is [the beginning of] a new sentence) cannot listen in — this ‘listening’ of theirs represents that faculty with which they memorise [what they hear] — on the High Council, the angels in the heavens (the [normally transitive verb] al-samā‘ is complemented with the preposition ilā, ‘to’ [here ‘in on’] because it includes the additional sense of ‘paying attention’ [while listening]; a variant reading has yassamma‘una, which is actually yatasamma‘ūna, the tā’ have been assimilated with the sīn), for they, the devils, are pelted, with flames, from every side, from the remotest regions of the heavens,

to repel [them] (duhūran is a verbal noun from daharahu, meaning, ‘he repelled him, driving him away’; it is an object denoting reason) and theirs, in the Hereafter, is an everlasting chastisement;

except him who snatches a fragment (al-khatfa is the verbal noun, that is to say, ‘[that] one time’; the exceptive clause refers to the subject [of the verb] yasma‘ūna, in other words, ‘the only devil that is able to listen is the one that hears a word from the angels and snatches it away quickly’) and who is then pursued by a piercing flame (shihāb is a meteor) that pierces him, or burns him or robs him of his senses.

So ask them, in other words, inquire of the people of Mecca for affirmation or by way of rebuke: Are they stronger as a creation, or those [others] whom We created?, of angels, heavens, the two earths and all that is in them (the use of man, ‘those whom’ [in man khalaqnā] indicates that the reference is predominantly to [other] rational creatures). Indeed We created them, that is, their origin, Adam, from a viscous clay, that sticks to the hand. The [intended] meaning is that their physical make-up is fragile so let them not behave arrogantly by rejecting the Prophet and the Qur’ān, a fact which will result in their — easily accomplished — destruction.

Nay, but (bal is for effecting a transition from one object to another, which in this case is to inform of his state and theirs) you marvel, (‘ajibta) addressing the Prophet (s), that is, [you marvel] that they deny you, while they engage in ridicule, at your marvelling,

and [even] when they are reminded, [when] they are admonished with the Qur’ān, they are not mindful, they do not heed the admonition,

and when they see a sign, such as the splitting of the moon [cf. Q. 54:1], they make it an object of ridicule, they deride it.

And they say, regarding it: ‘This is nothing but manifest sorcery — and they say in denial of the Resurrection —

When we are dead and have become dust and bones, shall we indeed be resurrected? (In both places [sc. a-idhā and a-innā] either pronounce both hamzas, or read without pronouncing the second one and inserting an alif between them, in both cases).

And our forefathers too?’ (read aw ābā’unā indicating a supplement; or read a-wa-ābā’unā as an interrogative, effecting the supplement with the wāw; so that what is being supplemented is either the inna together with its subject [sc. a-inna la-mab‘ūthūna], or the subject [of the verb] la-mab‘ūthūna, in which case the interrogative hamza is a separator).

Say: ‘Yes, you will be resurrected, and you will be utterly humiliated!’

For it will be only (innamā hiya, this [hiya] is a demonstrative pronoun explained by [the following, zajratun) a single cry and, lo! they, all creatures, will be, alive, watching, [to see] what will be done with them.

And they, the disbelievers, will say, ‘O (yā is for calling attention) woe to us!’, [O] our destruction [is here] (waylanā is a verbal noun without any [regular] verbal conjugation). And the angels will say to them: ‘This is the Day of Retribution’, the Day of Reckoning and Requital.

‘This is the Day of Judgement, between [all] creatures, that you used to deny!’

It is then said to the angels: ‘Gather those who did wrong, to their own souls through idolatry, together with their mates, their associates from among the devils, and what they used to worship,

besides God, in other words, other than Him, in the way of graven images, and lead them, direct them and drive them, to the path of Hell, the way to the Fire.

But [first] stop them, detain them on the path, for they must be questioned, about all their sayings and deeds, and it will be said to them in rebuke:

“What is wrong with you that you do not help one another?”, as was the case with you in this world. And it will be said to them:

Nay, but today they offer complete submission, [they are] compliant, abased.

And some of them will turn to others, questioning each other, blaming one another and disputing.

They, that is, the followers among them, will say, to those whom they followed: ‘Indeed you used to approach us from the right’, in other words, from that aspect in which we used to trust you, for you used to swear that you followed the truth, and so we believed you and we followed you — in other words, ‘Indeed, you have led us astray!’

They, the ones who were followed, say, to them [the followers]: ‘On the contrary! You were [simply] not believers, for it would only be true that we led you astray if you had actually been believers [in the first place] and then rejected faith and followed us.

And we did not have any warrant, any sway or power, over you, to compel you to follow us. Nay, but you [yourselves] were a rebellious folk, astray, like us.

So our Lord’s Words, of chastisement — namely, His Words: ‘Verily I shall fill Hell with jinn and mankind together’ [Q. 11:119] — have become due against us, both. Indeed we shall, both, taste, the chastisement with these Words — which prompts them to say:

So we led you astray — the reason for which is given by their saying — indeed we [ourselves] were astray’.

God, exalted be He, says: So they on that day, the Day of Resurrection, will share in the chastisement, for they shared in the error.

Indeed so, in the same way that We deal with these, We deal with sinners, other than these, in other words, We chastise both of them the followers and those who were followed.

For truly it was they who, in other words, [it was] these [sinners] who — given the context that follows — when it was said to them, ‘There is no god except God’, used to be scornful,

and would say, ‘Are we to abandon our gods for a mad poet?’, that is, for the sake of what Muhammad (s) says? (as regards the hamzas [in a-innā, ‘are we’], the same applies as mentioned above).

God, exalted be He, says: Nay, but he has brought [them] the truth and confirmed the [earlier] messengers, namely, those who had also brought this [truth], which is that there is no god except God.

‘You shall certainly (there is a shift from the third person address [to the second] here) taste the painful chastisement,

and you will only be requited, the requital for, what you used to do’.

Except for God’s sincere servants, namely, the believers (the exception clause here is a discontinuous one),

whose requital is mentioned in His saying: For them there will be, in Paradise, a distinct provision, morning and evening —

fruits (fawākihu either substitutes for rizqun, or is an explication thereof) here these [fruits] represent what is eaten for delight and not for the sake of preserving one’s health [as in this world], for the inhabitants of Paradise are in no need of preserving it given that their bodies will be created to be everlasting — and they will honoured, with God’s reward, glory be to Him, exalted be He,

in the Gardens of Bliss,

[reclining] upon couches, facing one another, so that they do not see the back of one another;

they are served from all round, each one of them [is so served], with a cup (ka’san, [this denotes] the vessel with the drink in it) from a spring, of wine that flows along the ground like streams of water,

white, whiter than milk, delicious to the drinkers, in contrast to the wine of this world which is distasteful to drink,

wherein there is neither madness, nothing to snatch away their minds, nor will they be spent by it (read yunzafūna or yunzifūna, from [1st form] nazafa or [4th form] anzafa, said of one drinking, in other words, they are [not] inebriated [by it], in contrast to the wine of this world),

and with them will be maidens of restrained glances, who reserved their glances [exclusively] for their spouses and do not look upon any other — because of the beauty they [the maidens] see in them — with beautiful eyes (‘īn means with large and beautiful eyes),

as if they were, in terms of [the starkness of their white] colour, hidden eggs, of ostriches, sheltered by their feathers from dust, the colour being that whiteness with a hint of pallor, which is the most beautiful of female complexions.

Some of them, some of the inhabitants of Paradise, will turn to others, questioning each other, regarding what they experienced in the [life of the] world.

One of them will say, ‘Indeed I had a comrade, a companion who used to reject [the idea of] resurrection,

who used to say, to me in reproach, “Are you really among those who affirm as truth, the Resurrection [and],

[that] when we are dead and have become dust and bones, we shall actually be called to account?” ’, that we shall be requited and reckoned with — he rejects [the truth of] this as well (as regards all three instances of the hamzas [sc. a-innaka, a-idhā, and a-innā] what has been mentioned above [applies]).

He, the one speaking, says, to his brethren [in Paradise], ‘Will you have a look?’, together with me into the Fire, to see his condition — but they will say, ‘No’.

Then he, that speaker, will take a look, through one of the apertures in Paradise, and he will catch sight of him, that is, he will see his comrade, in the centre of Hell, in the middle of the Fire.

He will say, to him, acknowledging that he [the latter] deserves his fate: ‘By God! You very nearly destroyed me, you [almost] ruined me through your misguidance (in, this has been softened from the hardened form [inna]).

And had it not been for the favour of my Lord, His grace to me in giving me faith, I [too] would have been of those arraigned’, with you, in the Fire. The inhabitants of Paradise will say:

Do we then not die [anymore],

aside from our first death, that is, the one [which we suffered] in this world, and are we not to be chastised?’ — this interrogative statement is one made out of [sheer] delight and in order to speak [at length] of the graces of God, exalted be He, in [His] granting of everlasting life and refraining from inflicting any punishment.

Truly this, that has mentioned [as being the reward] for the inhabitants of Paradise, is indeed the mighty success.

For the like of this let [all] the workers work — it is said that this is said to them, or it is what they say [themselves].

Is that, which is mentioned to them, a better hospitality (nuzul, denotes what is prepared for one who is being received as a guest and so forth) or the Zaqqūm tree, that is prepared for the inhabitants of the Fire — it is the vilest and most bitter tree of the Tihāma region, which God causes to grow in the Fire, as will be stated shortly.

We have indeed made it, for that reason [sc. its being a tree in the Fire], a trial for the wrongdoers?, namely, [for] the disbelievers of Mecca, for they said, ‘Fire consumes trees so how can it make them grow forth?’

Indeed it is a tree that comes forth from the very source of Hell, in other words, from the depths of Hell, with its branches extending up through all its [different] levels.

Its spathes, likened to the spathes of a date-palm, are like the heads of devils, [as] vile-looking snakes.

And indeed they, the disbelievers, will eat of it, despite its vileness, because of the severity of their hunger, and will fill their bellies from it.

Then, lo!, on top of it they will have a brew of boiling water, which they drink and which mixes with what they have eaten and becomes a brew thereof.

Then indeed their return shall be to Hell-fire — this suggests that they exit from it [only] to drink the boiling water, which is located outside it.

Lo! they found their fathers to be astray,

and so they are [also now] hurrying in their footsteps: they shall be prodded to follow them and they end up hurrying towards it [Hell-fire].

And verily most of the ancients, of past communities, went astray before them,

and We certainly had sent among them warners, in the way of messengers to threaten [them].

So behold how was the consequence for them who were warned, namely, the disbelievers: in other words the sequel for them was [that they ended up in] the chastisement;

[all] except God’s sincere servants, namely, the believers, who are saved from chastisement because they were sincere in their worship (mukhlisīna); or (if one reads mukhlasīna) because God has made them sincerely devoted to such [worship].

And verily Noah called to Us, when he said, ‘My Lord: I have been overcome, so help [me] [Q. 54:10], and how excellent were the Hearers of the prayer, for him, were We: in other words he invoked Us against his people, so We destroyed them by drowning [them].

And We delivered him and his family from the great distress, which was the drowning,

and made his descendants the survivors, thus all human beings are descended from him, peace be upon him. He had three sons: Shem (Sām), the ancestor of the Arabs, the Persians and the Byzantines; Ham (Hām), the ancestor of the Negroes; and Japheth (Yāfith), the ancestor of the Turks, the Khazar and [the peoples of] Gog and Magog and [the inhabitants of] such regions.

And We left, We preserved, for him, fair praise, among posterity: [among] the prophets and communities [after him] until the Day of Resurrection [which is]:

‘Peace, from Us, be to Noah among the worlds!’

Thus indeed, in the way that We requited them, We requite the virtuous.

He was indeed one of Our faithful servants.

Then We did drown the others, the disbelievers from among his folk.

And truly of his adherents, that is, of those who agreed with him on the fundaments of religion, was Abraham, despite the fact that there was a long interval between them, 2640 years, and between them came [the prophets] Hūd and Sālih.

When he came to his Lord, in other words, he continued to follow Him upon coming to Him, with a heart that was pure, of any doubt or the like,

when he said, [while still] in this continuous state of his, to his father and his folk, in reproach: ‘What do — what is it that — you worship?

Is it a calumny (a-ifkan, as regards the two hamzas, the same applies as mentioned before) — gods other than God — that you desire? (ifkan is an object denoting reason; ālihatan is the direct object of turīdūna, ‘you desire’; ifk denotes the worst kind of lie). In other words: do you worship [any] other than God?

What then is your supposition regarding the Lord of the Worlds?’, having worshipped other than Him, [do you think] that He will leave you without punishment? No! They were a people of astrologers. On one occasion, they went out to celebrate a festival of theirs and left their food behind with their idols, claiming that they were securing thereby blessings for it and that they would eat it upon their return. They had said to the lord Abraham: ‘Come out with us’.

And he cast a glance at the stars — to delude them into thinking that he relies on them, so that they would then trust him —

and said, ‘Indeed I feel [I will be] sick’, that is, I will fall ill.

So they went away, to their festival, leaving him behind.

Then he turned, he stole away, to their gods, the idols, in front of which the food had been placed, and said, mockingly: ‘Will you not eat? — but they failed to utter [a word].

He then said: What is wrong with you that you do not speak?’ — but [still] he received no response.

He then turned on them striking [them] with his right hand, with might, smashing them. Those who saw him reported this to [the rest of] his people.

So they came running towards him, walking hurriedly, and they said to him, ‘We worship them while you smash them?!’

He said, to them in reproach: ‘Do you worship what you [yourselves] have carved, out of stone and other materials, idols,

when God created you and whatever you make?’, [whether it be] your act of carving and that which you have carved? So worship Him alone! (the mā [in wa-mā ta‘malūna, ‘and whatever you make’] is that of the verbal noun; but it is also said to introduce a relative clause, or it is adjectivally qualified).

They said, amongst themselves: ‘Build for him a structure, then fill it with firewood and set it on fire, and when it is ablaze, then cast him into the fierce fire’.

So they sought to outwit him, by flinging him into the fire, so that it may destroy him, but We made them the lowermost, the vanquished, as he came out of the fire unharmed.

And he said, ‘I shall indeed depart to my Lord, I shall emigrating to Him from the abode of disbelief — He will guide me, to the place to which My Lord has commanded that I end up in, and this was Syria. When he reached the Holy Land, he said:

My Lord! Grant me, a child, of the righteous’.

So We gave him the good tidings of a forbearing son.

And when he was old enough to walk with him, that is, to go about with him and help him out — this is said to have been [either] at the age of seven or at the age of thirteen — he said, ‘O my dear son, I see, that is, I have seen, in a dream that I shall sacrifice you — and the visions of prophets are [always] true and their actions are [inspired] by the command of God, exalted be He. So see what you think’, of this dream. He consulted him so that he [his son] might accept the idea of being sacrificed and comply with the command for it. He said, ‘O my father (the [final] tā’ [in abati] replaces the yā’ of the genitive [possessive] annexation [yā abī]) do whatever you have been commanded, to do. You shall find me, God willing, of the steadfast’, in this [affair].

And when they had both submitted, [when] they had submitted to and were prepared to comply with God’s command, exalted be He, and he had laid him down on his forehead, [when] he had pushed him down to the ground thereon — every human being has two brows (jabīn) between which is the forehead (jabha); this was at Minā. Abraham passed the knife across his [son’s] throat but it did not do anything, by some impediment of the Divine Power,

We called to him, ‘O Abraham!

Verily you have fulfilled the vision’, by what you have done, in that you were able to go through with the act of sacrifice. In other words, that [which you have done] suffices for you [as redemption] (the statement nādaynāhu, ‘We called to him’, is the response to the lammā, ‘when’, so that the wāw [in wa-nādaynāhu, ‘We called to him’] is extra). So, in the same way that We have rewarded you, do We reward those who are virtuous, to their own souls in obeying the Command [of God], by removing from them their distress.

Truly this, sacrifice to which he was commanded, was indeed a clear test’, that is to say, the ultimate test [of faith].

Then We ransomed him, the one whom he had been commanded to sacrifice, namely, Ishmael or Isaac — two different opinions — with a mighty sacrifice, [a mighty] ram from Paradise, the same one that Abel had offered as as sacrifice: Gabriel, peace be upon him, brought it and the lord Abraham sacrificed it as he cried, Allāhu akbar, ‘God is Great’.

And We left, We preserved, for him among posterity, fair praise [namely]:

‘Peace, from Us, be to Abraham!’

So, in way that We rewarded him, do We reward those who are virtuous, to their own souls.

Indeed he is one of Our faithful servants.

And We gave him the good tidings of [the birth of] Isaac — some have argued that this proves that the one who was sacrificed was not him [Isaac] — a prophet (nabiyyan is a future circumstantial qualifier, that is to say, ‘he will come to be, with his prophethood decreed), one of the righteous.

And We blessed him, by multiplying his descendants, and Isaac, his son, [We also blessed] by appointing the majority of prophets from among his progeny. And among their descendants is he who is virtuous, [he who is] a believer, and he who plainly wrongs his soul, [he who is] a disbeliever, whose disbelief is manifest.

And verily We favoured Moses and Aaron, with prophethood,

and We delivered them and their people, the Children of Israel, from the great distress, namely, Pharaoh’s enslavement of them.

And We helped them, against the Egyptians, so that they became the victors.

And We gave them the enlightening scripture, the one whose statements concerning prescribed punishments and rulings and otherwise are excellently expressed — this is the Torah.

And We guided them to the straight path, [the straight] way,

and We left, We preserved, for them among posterity, fair praise [namely]:

‘Peace, from Us, be to Moses and Aaron!’

So, just as We rewarded them both, do We reward the virtuous.

Indeed both were among Our faithful servants.

And truly Elias (read [wa-inna Ilyās] with the initial hamza or without [wa-inna’l-yāsa) was [also] one of the messengers. Some think that this [Elias] was the son of Aaron’s brother — [Aaron] the brother of Moses; but some say that this [Elias] was some other [person], who was sent to the people living in and around Baalbak.

When (idh is dependent because of an implicit [verb] udhkur, ‘mention’) he said to his people, ‘Will you not fear [God]?

Do you call on Baal — this was the name of an idol of theirs which was made of gold, from which the name of their city derives, with the addition of [the suffix] bak — that is to say, do you worship him, and abandon the Best of Creators, and not worship Him,

God, your Lord, and the Lord of your forefathers?’ (read [as predicates] allāhu, rabbukum and rabbu, in the nominative, because of the [implicit] omitted huwa [being the subject]; or read allāha, rabbakum and rabba, in the accusative, as supplements to ahsana, ‘the best of’).

But they denied him. So they will indeed be arraigned, in the Fire,

— [all] except God’s delivered servants, namely, the believers, who will be saved from it,

and We left for him among posterity, fair praise [namely]:

‘Peace, from Us, be to Elias!’. It is said that this [ilyāsīn] is [the same] Elias mentioned above; but it is also said that this denotes him together with [all] those who were believers with him, and so they have been coupled [under the same term] with him being the predominant, as when one might say al-Muhallabūn, ‘the Muhallabids’, to mean al-Muhallab and his folk; a variant reading has āl yāsīn, by which is meant his family as well as Elias himself.

Indeed so — just as We rewarded him — do We reward the virtuous.

Truly he is one of Our faithful servants.

And indeed Lot was one of the messengers;

mention, when We delivered him together with all his family,

except an old woman [who was] among those who stayed behind, in other words, those who stayed behind in the chastisement.

Then We destroyed [all] the others, the disbelievers from among his people.

And indeed you pass by them, by their remains and [the remains of] their dwellings during your travels, [both] in the morning, that is, during the daytime,

and at night: will you, O people of Mecca, not then understand?, what befell them and so take heed therefrom?

And indeed Jonah was one of the messengers;

when he fled to the laden ship — after he became furious with his people, as the chastisement which he had promised them did not come down on them; so he boarded the ship, which then stopped out in the deep sea. The seamen said, ‘There is a runaway slave here [upon this ship] who has fled from his master: a casting of lots should expose him!’

Then he drew lots, with the passengers on the ship, and was of those rejected, of the losers in the draw and so they threw him into the sea.

Then the whale swallowed him while he was blameworthy, that is, while he was guilty of a blameworthy thing, having gone to sea and embarked the ship without his Lord’s permission.

And had he not been one of those who glorify [God], that is to say, those who make remembrance [of God], for inside the whale’s belly he was repeatedly saying [the words] ‘There is no god except You. Glory be to You! I have indeed been one of the wrongdoers’ [Q. 21:87],

he would have tarried in its belly until the day when they are raised, in other words, the whale’s belly would have been his tomb until the Day of Resurrection.

Then We cast him, We flung him out of the belly of the whale, onto the barren land, onto the face of the earth, that is, onto the shore on that same day — or three, or seven, or twenty, or forty days later — and he was sick, ailing like a [newly-born] featherless chick.

And We made a gourd plant to grow above him, to provide shade for him with its stem, which is not the case usually with gourds, as a miracle for him; a mountain goat would come to him in the morning and in the evening and he would drink its milk, until he finally regained his strength.

And We sent him, afterwards — as [We had done] before, to a people in Nineveh, in the region of Mosul — to a [community of a] hundred thousand or, in fact, more — [a community of] twenty, thirty or seventy thousand.

And they believed, after they saw [with their own eyes] the chastisement which they had been promised. So We gave them comfort, We kept them alive to enjoy their wealth, for a while, until their terms [of life] would be concluded [while they took comfort] therein.

So ask them, inquire of the Meccan disbelievers, by way of reproach: are daughters to be for your Lord, after their claim that the angels were God’s daughters, while sons are to be for them?, so that the best becomes exclusively theirs?

Or did We create the angels females while they were witnesses?, to Our [act of] creation, that they might then say such a thing?

Lo! it is indeed out of their [own] mendacity, their [own] lies, that they say,

‘God has begotten’, when they say that the angels are God’s daughters. And verily they are liars, in this [respect].

Has He preferred daughters to sons? (read a’stafā, ‘has He preferred’, indicating an interrogative [hamza], which stands in place of the omitted conjunctive hamza).

What is wrong with you? How do you judge?, [how do you make] such a depraved judgement?

Will you not then remember? (tadhakkarūna: the tā’ [of tatadhakkarūna] has been assimilated with the dhāl), that He, glory be to Him, is exalted above having a child?

Or do you have a clear warrant?, plain definitive proof that God has a child?

Then produce your scripture, the Torah, and show Me this [as it is mentioned] in it, if you are being truthful, about this statement of yours.

And they, namely, the idolaters, have set up between Him, exalted be He, and the jinn, namely, the angels (jinna: they are so called because they are hidden [ijtinān] from vision) a kinship, by saying that they are God’s daughters, while the jinn certainly know that they, that is, those who say this, shall indeed be arraigned, into the Fire, to be chastised therein.

Glory be to God, affirming that He is exalted, above what they attribute, [to Him] in the way of His having a child,

— [all] except God’s devoted servants, namely, believers (the exceptive clause here is discontinuous) in other words, [that is] because they declare that God transcends what such individuals attribute [to Him].

For indeed you and what you worship, of idols,

— you cannot tempt, anyone, thereto, that is, to [incline to] your [worshipped] idols (‘alayhi, ‘thereto’, is semantically connected to His saying [bi-fātinīna], ‘you cannot tempt’),

except him who will burn in Hell, in God’s knowledge, exalted be He.

Gabriel said to the Prophet (s): And there is not one of us, [us] the company of angels, but has a known station, in the heavens, in which he worships God and which he does not transgress.

And indeed it is we who are the rangers, of our feet in prayer.

And indeed it is we who give glory, [it is we] who declare that God transcends what does not befit Him.

And indeed (in, is softened in place of the hardened one) they, the Meccan disbelievers, used to say,

‘If we had but a reminder, a scripture, from the ancients, that is, from among the scriptures of past communities,

we would have surely been God’s devoted servants’, [devoting] worship purely to Him.

God, exalted be He, says: Yet they disbelieved in it, in other words, in the Book that came to them, namely, the Qur’ān, more glorious than [all] those other scriptures; but they will come to know, the consequences of their disbelief.

And verily Our Word, [containing the promise] of victory, has gone beforehand in favour of Our servants, the messengers: and that [Word] is, I shall assuredly prevail, I and My messengers [Q. 58:21] —

or it is His [following] saying — assuredly they shall be helped,

and assuredly Our hosts, namely, the believers, they will indeed be the victors, over the disbelievers by [their being given] the definitive proofs and assistance against them in this world. And if some of these [believers] are not victorious over them in this world, then assuredly in the Hereafter [they will be so].

So leave them, in other words, shun the Meccan disbelievers, for a while, until [such time as] you are commanded to fight them;

and watch them, when the chastisement is sent down on them; for they will [soon] see, the consequences of their disbelief.

They then said in mockery, ‘When will this chastisement be sent down?’ God, exalted be He, threatens them by saying: Do they seek to hasten Our chastisement?

But when it descends in their courtyard — al-Farrā’ said that the Arabs find it sufficient to refer to a people by referring to ‘their courtyard’ — how awful, how terrible a morning, will be the morning for those who were warned (the overt noun [al-mundharīn] has replaced the [third person] pronominalisation [in sāhatihim]).

So leave them for a while,

and watch; for they will [soon] see — this [statement] is repeated in order to emphasise the threat made to them and to reassure the Prophet (s).

Glory be to your Lord, the Lord of Might, of Triumph, [exalted is He] above what they allege!, in the way of His having a child.

And peace be to the messengers, who convey from God the Message of the Oneness [of God] and [His] Laws.

And praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, for granting these [messengers] victory and destroying the disbelievers.