Quran — Page 521

CONSIDER the firmament full of starry paths!

Verily, [O men,] you are deeply at variance as to what to believe:

perverted in his views thereon is he who would deceive himself!

They but destroy themselves, they who are given to guessing at what they cannot ascertain –

they who blunder along, in ignorance lost –

they who [mockingly] ask, “When is that Day of Judgment to be?”

[It will be] a Day when they will be sorely tried by the fire,

[and will be told:] “Taste this your trial! It is this that you were so hastily asking for!”

[But,] behold, the God-conscious will find themselves amid gardens and springs,

enjoying all that their Sustainer will have granted them [because], verily, they were doers of good in the past:

they would lie asleep during but a small part of the night,

and would pray for forgiveness from their innermost hearts;

and [would assign] in all that they possessed a due share unto such as might ask [for help] and such as might suffer priva­tion.

AND ON EARTH there are signs [of God’s exis­tence, visible] to all who are endowed with inner certainty,

just as [there are signs thereof] within your own selves: can you not, then, see?

And in heaven is [the source of] your sus­tenance [on earth] and [of] all that you are promised [for your life after death]:

for, by the Sustainer of heaven and earth, this [life after death] is the very truth - as true as that you are endowed with speech!

AND HAS the story of Abraham’s honoured guests ever come within thy ken?

When those [heavenly messengers] came unto him and bade him peace, he answered, “[And upon you be] peace!” - [saying to himself,] “They are strangers.”

Then he turned quietly to his household, and brought forth a fat [roasted] calf,

and placed it before them, saying, “Will you not eat?”

[And when he saw that the guests would not eat,] he became apprehensive of them; [but] they said, “Fear not” - and gave him the glad tiding of [the birth of] a son who would be endowed with deep knowledge.

Thereupon his wife approached [the guests] with a loud cry, and struck her face [in astonishment] and exclaimed: “A barren old woman [like me]!”

They answered: “Thus has thy Sustainer decreed; and, verily, He alone is truly wise, all- knowing!”