Muhammad

“ Then thus revealed we to Moses and to his brother: “ Provide houses for your people in Egypt, and in your houses make a Kebla, and observe prayer and proclaim good tidings to the believers.”
And Moses said: “ O our Lord! thou hast indeed given to Pharaoh and his nobles splendour and riches in this present life: O our Lord! that they may err from thy way! O our Lord! confound their riches, and harden their hearts that they may not believe till they see the dolorous torment.” ”

“ On this day the one of you shall have no power over others for help or hurt. And we will say to the evil doers, “ Taste ye the torment of the fire, which ye treated as a delusion.”
For when our distinct signs are recited to them, they say, “ This is merely a man who would fain pervert you from your father's Worship.” And they say, “ This (Koran) is no other than a forged falsehood.” And the unbelievers say to the truth when it is presented to them, “ 'Tis nothing but palpable sorcery.” ”

“ It is God who hath given you the earth as a sure foundation, and over it built up the Heaven, and formed you, and made your forms beautiful, and feedeth you with good things. This is God your Lord. Blessed then be God the Lord of the Worlds!
He is the Living One. No God is there but He. Call then upon Him and offer Him a pure worship. Praise be to God the Lord of the Worlds!
Say: Verily I am forbidden to worship what ye call on beside God, after that the clear tokens have come to me from my Lord, and I am bidden to surrender myself to the Lord of the Worlds. ”

“ Said Moses to him, “Thou art plainly a most depraved person.”
And when he would have laid violent hands on him who was their common foe, he said to him, “Moses, dost thou desire to slay me, as thou slayedst a man yesterday? Thou desirest only to become a tyrant in this land, and desirest not to become a peacemaker.”
But a man came running up from the city's end. He said, “O Moses, of a truth, the nobles consult to slay thee—Begone then—I counsel thee as a friend.” ”

“ Wherefore an encircling desolation from thy Lord swept round it while they slumbered,
20⁠And in the morning it was like a garden whose fruits had all been cut.
Then at dawn they called to each other,
“ Go out early to your field, if ye would cut your dates.”
So on they went whispering to each other,
“ No poor man shall set foot this day within your garden;”
And they went out at daybreak with this settled purpose.
But when they beheld it, they said, “Truly we have been in fault:
Yes! we are forbidden our fruits.” ”

“ For them are good tidings in this life, and in the next! There is no change in the words of God! This, the great felicity!
And let not their discourse grieve thee: for all might is God's: the Hearer, the Knower, He! Is not whoever is in the Heavens and the Earth subject to God? What then do they follow who, beside God, call upon deities they have joined with Him? They follow but a conceit, and they are but liars!
It is He who hath ordained for you the night wherein to rest, and the lightsome day. Verily in this are signs for those who hearken. ”

“ Who have believed in our signs and become Muslims:
70⁠Enter ye and your wives into Paradise, delighted.”
Dishes and bowls of gold shall go round unto them: there shall they enjoy whatever their souls desire, and whatever their eyes delight in; and therein shall ye abide for ever.
This is Paradise, which ye have received as your heritage in recompense for your works;
Therein shall ye have fruits in abundance, of which ye shall eat.
But in the torment of Hell shall the wicked remain for ever: It shall not be mitigated to them, and they shall be mute for despair therein. ”

“ But thy Lord did not destroy the cities till He had sent an apostle to their mother-city to rehearse our signs to its people: nor did we destroy the cities unless its people were unjust.
60⁠And all that hath been bestowed on you is merely for enjoyment and pomp of this life present: but that which is with God is better and more lasting. Will ye not be wise?
Shall he then to whom we have promised a goodly promise and who obtaineth it, be as he on whom we have bestowed the enjoyments of this life present, and who on the day of Resurrection shall be brought up for punishment? ”

“ In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
The DESIRE of increasing riches occupieth you,
Till ye come to the grave.
Nay! but in the end ye shall know—
Nay! once more, in the end ye shall know your folly. ”

“ But man chooseth to deny what is before him:
He asketh, "When this day of Resurrection?"
But when the eye shall be dazzled.
And when the moon shall be darkened,
And the sun and the moon shall be together, [1]
10⁠On that day man shall cry, “Where is there a place to flee to?”
But in vain—there is no refuge—
With thy Lord on that day shall be the sole asylum.
On that day shall man be told of all that he hath done first and last;
Yea, a man shall be the eye witness against himself:
And even if he put forth his plea. . . . ”

“ And as for those who have wrought out evil, their recompense shall be evil of like degree, and shame shall cover them—no protector shall they have against God: as though their faces were darkened with deep murk of night! ”

“ My Lord best knoweth who hath guidance, and who is in undoubted error.
Thou didst never expect that the Book would be given thee. Of thy Lord’s mercy only hath it been sent down. Be not thou helpful then to the unbelievers:
Neither let them turn thee aside from the signs of God after they have been sent down to thee, but bid men to thy Lord; and be not among those who add gods to God:
And call not on any other god with God. There is no god but He! Everything shall perish except Himself! ”

“ And when Moses came to him with our demonstrative signs they said, “This is nought but magical device. We never heard the like among our sires of old.”
And Moses said, “My Lord best knoweth on whom He hath bestowed His guidance, and whose shall be the recompense of the abode of Paradise. Verily, the wicked shall not prosper.”
And Pharaoh said, “O ye nobles, ye have no other God that I know of but myself. Burn me then, Haman, bricks of clay, [13] and build me a tower that I may mount up to the God of Moses, for in sooth, I deem him a liar.” ”

“ Envy they other men what God of his bounty hath given them? We gave of old the Scriptures and wisdom to the line of Abraham, and we gave them a grand kingdom:
—Some of them believe on the prophet and some turn aside from him:—the flame of Hell is their sufficing punishment!
Those who disbelieve our signs we will in the end cast into the fire: so oft as their skins shall be well burnt, [16] we will change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the torment. Verily God is Mighty, Wise! ”

“ Of a truth my Lord will be liberal or sparing in his supplies to whom he pleaseth: but the greater part of men acknowledge it not.
Neither by your riches nor by your children shall you bring yourselves into nearness with Us; but they who believe and do the thing that is right shall have a double reward for what they shall have done: and in the pavilions of Paradise shall they dwell secure!
But they who shall aim to invalidate our signs, shall be consigned to punishment. ”

“ Yet the Moslems themselves consider the book the finest that ever appeared among men. They find no incongruity in the style. To them the matter is all true and the manner all perfect. Their eastern temperament responds readily to the crude, strong, and wild appeal which its cadences make to them, and the jingling rhyme in which the sentences of a discourse generally end adds to the charm of the whole. The Koran, even if viewed from the point of view of style alone, was to them from the first nothing less than a miracle, as great a miracle as ever was wrought. ”

“ We gradually lose the Poet in the missionary aiming to convert, the warm asserter of dogmatic truths; the descriptions of natural objects, of the judgment, of Heaven and Hell, make way for gradually increasing historical statements, first from Jewish, and subsequently from Christian histories; while, in the 29 Suras revealed at Medina, we no longer listen to vague words; often as it would seem without positive aim, but to the earnest disputant with the enemies of his faith, the Apostle pleading the cause of what he believes to be the fruit of God. ”

“ And Blessed be He whose is the kingdom of the Heavens and of the Earth and of all that is between them; for with Him is the knowledge of the Hour, and to Him shall ye be brought back.
The gods whom they call upon beside Him shall not be able to intercede for others: they only shall be able who bore witness to the truth and [21] knew it. ”

“ And when tidings, either of security or alarm, reach them, they tell them abroad; but if they would report them to the apostle, and to those who are in authority among them, those who desire information would learn it from them. But for the goodness and mercy of God towards you, ye would have followed Satan except a few!
Fight, therefore, on God's path: lay not burdens on any but thyself; and stir up the faithful. The might of the infidels haply will God restrain, for God is the stronger in prowess, and the stronger to punish. ”

“ Call ye upon those whom ye deem gods, beside God: their power in the Heavens and in the Earth is not the weight of an atom—neither have th—ey any share in either; nor hath He a helper from among them. ”

“ And whoever of you is not rich enough to marry free believing women, then let him marry such of your believing maidens as have fallen into your hands as slaves; God well knoweth your faith. Ye are sprung the one from the other. ”

“ Learning he has none, or next to none. His chief objects of knowledge are floating stories and traditions largely picked up from hearsay, and his over-wrought mind is his only teacher. The literary compositions to which he had ever listened were the half-cultured, yet often wildly powerful rhapsodies of early Arabian minstrels, akin to Ossian rather than to anything else within our knowledge. What wonder then that his Koran took a form which to our colder temperaments sounds strange, unbalanced, and fantastic? ”

“ Forbidden to you also are married women, except those who are in your hands as slaves: This is the law of God for you. And it is allowed you, beside this, to seek out wives by means of your wealth, with modest conduct, and without fornication. And give those with whom ye have cohabited their dowry. This is the law. But it shall be no crime in you to make agreements over and above the law. ”

“ The simple shepherds and wandering Bedouins of Arabia, are transformed, as if by a magician's wand, into the founders of empires, the builders of cities, the collectors of more libraries than they at first destroyed, while cities like Fostât, Baghdad, Cordova, and Delhi, attest the power at which Christian Europe trembled. ”

“ One day thou shalt see the believers, men and women, with their light running before them, and on their right hand. [3] The angels shall say to them, “ Good tidings for you this day of gardens beneath whose shades the rivers flow, in which ye shall abide for ever!” ”

“ The fault appears, however, to lie partly in our difficulty to appreciate the psychology of the Arab prophet. We must, in order to do him justice, give full consideration to his temperament and to the condition of things around him. We are here in touch with an untutored but fervent mind, trying to realise itself and to assimilate certain great truths which have been powerfully borne in upon him, in order to impart them in a convincing form to his fellow-tribesmen. He is surrounded by obstacles of every kind, yet he manfully struggles on with the message that is within him. ”

“ But whoever shall kill a believer of set purpose, his recompense shall be hell; for ever shall he abide in it; God shall be wrathful with him, and shall curse him, and shall get ready for him a great torment. ”

“ They shall say, “Came not your apostles to you with the tokens?” They shall say, “Yes.” They shall say, “Cry ye then aloud for help:” but the cry of the unbelievers shall be only in vain.
Assuredly, in this present life will we succour our apostles and those who shall have believed, and on the day when the witnesses shall stand forth;
A day whereon the plea of the evil doers shall not avail them; but theirs shall be a curse, and theirs the woe of the abode in Hell. ”

“ A matter of wonderment is it to the men of Mecca, that to a person among themselves We revealed, “ Bear warnings to the people: and, to those who believe, bear the good tidings that they shall have with their Lord the precedence merited by their sincerity.” ”

“ And when he saw it move as though it were a serpent, he retreated and fled and returned not. “Moses,” cried the Voice, “draw near and fear not, for thou art in safety.
Put thy hand into thy bosom; it shall come forth white, but unharmed: and draw back thy hand [12] to thee without fear. These shall be two signs from thy Lord to Pharaoh and his nobles; for they are a perverse people.” ”

“ Fount whereof they who draw nigh to God shall drink.
The sinners indeed laugh the faithful to scorn:
30⁠And when they pass by them they wink at one another,—
And when they return to their own people, they return jesting. ”

“ And your Lord saith, “Call upon me—I will hearken unto you: but they who turn in disdain from my service shall enter Hell with shame.”
It is God who hath ordained the night for your rest, and the day to give you light: verily God is rich in bounties to men: but most men render not the tribute of thanks. ”

“ Haply our Lord will give us in exchange a better garden than this: verily we crave it of our Lord.”
Such hath been our chastisement—but heavier shall be the chastisement of the next world. Ah! did they but know it.
Verily, for the God-fearing are gardens of delight in the presence of their Lord. ”