Sura XX (20)
Ta. Ha.
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In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Ta.
Ha. Not to sadden thee have we sent down this Koran to thee,
But as
a warning for him who feareth;
It is
a missive from Him who hath made the earth and the lofty heavens!
The
God of Mercy sitteth on his throne:
His,
whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth, and whatsoever is
between them both, and whatsoever is beneath the humid soil!
Thou
needest not raise thy voice: for He knoweth
the secret whisper, and the yet more hidden.
God!
There is no God but He! Most excellent His titles!
Hath
the history of Moses reached thee?
When
he saw a fire, and said to his family, "Tarry you here, for I perceive a fire:
20:10 Haply I may bring you a brand from it,
or find at the fire a guide."
And
when he came to it, he was called to, "O Moses!
Verily,
I am thy Lord: therefore pull off they shoes: for thou art in the holy
And I
have chosen thee: hearken then to what shall
be revealed.
Verily,
I am God: there is no God but me: therefore worship me, and observe prayer for a
remembrance of me.
Verily
the hour is coming: -- I all but manifest it
--
That
every soul may be recompensed for its labours.
Nor
let him who believeth not therein and followeth his lust, turn thee aside from
this truth, and thou perish.
Now,
what is that in thy right hand, O Moses?"
Said
he, "It is my staff on which I lean, and with which I beat down leaves for
my sheep, and I have other uses for it."
20:20 He said, "Cast it down, O
Moses!"
So he
cast it down, and lo! it became a serpent that ran along.
He
said, "Lay hold on it, and fear not: to
its former state will we restore it."
"Now
play thy right hand to thy arm-pit: it shall
come forth white, but unhurt: -- another sign!
--
That
we may shew thee the greatest of our signs.
Go to
Pharaoh, for he hath burst all bounds."
He
said, "O my Lord! enlarge my breast for me,
And
make my work easy for me,
And
loose the knot of my tongue,
That
they may understand my speech.
20:30 And give me a counsellor from among my
family,
Aaron
my brother;
By him
gird up my loins,
And
make him a colleague in my work,
That
we may praise thee oft and oft remember thee,
For
thou regardest us."
He
said, "O Moses, thou hast obtained thy suit:
Already,
at another time, have we showed thee favour,
When
we spake unto thy mother what was spoken:
'Cast
him into the ark: then cast him on the sea
[the river], and the sea shall throw him on the shore:
and an enemy to me and an enemy to him shall take him up.' And I myself have
made thee an object of love,
20:40 That thou mightest be reared in mine
eye.
When
thy sister went and said, 'Shall I shew you one who will nurse him?' Then We
returned thee to thy mother that her eye might be cheered, and that she might
not grieve. And when thou slewest a person, We delivered thee from trouble, and
We tried thee with other trial.
For
years didst thou stay among the people of Midian; then camest thou hither by my
decree, O Moses:
And I
have chosen thee for Myself.
Go
thou and thy brother with my signs and be not slack to remember me.
Go you
to Pharaoh, for he hath burst all bounds:
But
speak you to him with gentle speech; haply he will reflect or fear."
They
said, "O our Lord! truly we fear lest he break forth against us, or act
with exceeding injustice."
He
said, "Fear you not, for I am with you both. I will hearken and I will
behold.
Go you
then to him and say, 'Verily we are Sent ones of thy Lord; send therefore the
children of Israel with us and vex them not:
now are we come to thee with signs from thy Lord, and, Peace shall be on him
who followeth the right guidance.
20:50 For now hath it been revealed to us,
that chastisement shall be on him who chargeth with falsehood, and turneth him
away.'"
And he
said, "Who is your Lord, O Moses?"
He
said, "Our Lord is He who hath given to everything its form and then
guideth it aright."
"But
what," said he, "was the state of generations past?"
He said,
"The knowledge thereof is with my Lord in the Book of his decrees. My Lord
erreth not, nor forgetteth.
He
hath spread the earth as a bed, and hath traced out paths for you therein, and
hath sent down rain from Heaven, and by it we bring forth the kinds of various
herbs:
- 'Eat
you, and feed your cattle.' Of a truth in this are signs unto men endued with
understanding.
From
it have we created you, and into it will we return you, and out of it will we
bring you forth a second time."
And we
shewed him all our signs: but he treated them
as falsehoods, and refused to believe.
He
said, "hast thou come, O Moses, to drive us from our land by thine
enchantments?
20:60 Therefore will we assuredly confront
thee with like enchantments: so appoint a
meeting between us and you -- we will not fail it, we, and do not thou - in a
place alike for both."
He
said, "On the feast day be your meeting, and in broad daylight let the
people be assembled."
And
Pharaoh turned away, and collected his craftsmen and came.
Said Moses
to them, "Woe to you! devise not a lie against God:
For
then will he destroy you by a punishment. They who have lied have ever
perished."
And
the magicians discussed their plan, and spake apart in secret:
They
said, "These two are surely sorcerers:
fain would they drive you from your land by their sorceries, and lead away in
their paths your chiefest men:
So
muster your craft: then come in order: well this day shall it be for him, who shall gain
the upper hand."
They
said, "O Moses, wilt thou first cast down thy rod, or shall we be the
first who cast?
He
said, "yes, cast you down first." And lo! by their enchantment their
cords and rods seemed to him as if they ran.
20:70 And Moses conceived a secret fear
within him.
We
said, "Fear not, for thou shalt be the uppermost:
Cast
forth then what is in thy right hand: it shall
swallow up what they have produced: they have
only produced the deceit of an enchanter: and
come where he may, ill shall an enchanter fare."
And
the magicians fell down and worshipped. They said, "We Believe in the Lord
of Aaron and of Moses."
Said
Pharaoh, "Believe you on him ere I give you leave? He, in sooth, is your
Master who hath taught you magic. I will therefore cut off your hands and your
feet on opposite sides, and I will crucify you on trunks of the palm, and
assuredly shall you learn which of us is severest in punishing, and who is the
more abiding."
They
said, "We will not have more regard to thee than to the clear tokens which
have come to us, or than to Him who hath made us:
doom the doom thou wilt: Thou canst only doom
as to this present life: of a truth we have
believed on our Lord that he may pardon us our sins and the sorcery to which
thou hast forced us, for God is better, and more abiding than thou.
As for
him who shall come before his Lord laden with crime -- for him verily is Hell: he shall not die in it and he shall not live.
But he
who shall come before Him, a believer, with righteous works, -- these! the
loftiest grades await them:
Gardens
of Eden, beneath whose trees the rivers flow:
therein shall they abide for ever. This, the reward of him who hath been
pure."
Then
revealed we to Moses, "Go forth by night with my servants and cleave for
them a dry path in the sea;
20:80 Fear not thou to be overtaken, neither
be thou afraid."
And
Pharaoh followed them with his hosts, and the whelming billows of the sea
overwhelmed them, for Pharaoh misled his people, and did not guide them.
O
children of Israel! we rescued you from your foes; and We appointed a meeting
with you on the right side of the mountain; and We caused the manna and the
quail to descend upon you:
"Eat,"
said We, "of the good things with which we have supplied you; but without
excess, lest my wrath fall upon you; for on whom my wrath doth fall, he
perisheth outright.
Surely
however will I forgive him who turneth to God and believeth, and worketh
righteousness, and then yieldeth to guidance.
But
what hath hastened thee on apart from thy people, O Moses?"
He
said, "They are hard on my footsteps: but
to thee, O Lord, have I hastened, that thou mightest be well pleased with
me."
He
said, "Of a truth now have we proved thy people since thou didst leave
them, and Samiri had led them astray."
And
Moses returned to his people, angered, sorrowful.
He
said, "O my people! did not your Lord promise you a good promise? Was the
time of my absence long to you? or desired you that wrath from your Lord should
light upon you, that you failed in your promise to me?"
20:90 They said, "Not of our own accord
have we failed in the promise to thee, but we were made to bring loads of the
people's trinkets, and we threw them into the fire -- and Samiri likewise cast
them in, and brought forth to them a corporeal lowing calf: and they said, 'This is your God and the God of
Moses, whom he hath forgotten.'"
What!
saw they not that it returned them no answer, and could neither hurt nor help
them?
And
Aaron had before said to them, "O my people! by this calf are you only
proved: surely your Lord is the God of Mercy: follow me therefore and obey my bidding."
They
said, "We will not cease devotion to it, till Moses come back to us."
He
said, "O Aaron! when thou sawest that they had gone astray, what hindered
thee from following me? Hast thou then disobeyed my command?"
He
said, 'O Son of my mother! seize me not by my beard, nor by my head: indeed I feared lest thou shouldst say, 'Thou hast
rent the children of Israel asunder, and hast not observed my orders.'"
He
said, "And what was they motive, O Samiri?" He said, "I saw what
they saw not: so I took a handful of dust from
the track of the messenger of God, and flung it into the calf, for so my soul
prompted me."
He
said, "Begone then: verily thy doom even
in this life shall be to say, 'Touch me not.' And there is a threat against
thee, which thou shalt not escape hereafter. Now look at thy god to which thou
hast continued so devoted: we will surely burn
it and reduce it to ashes, which we will cast into the sea.
Your
God is God, beside whom there is no God: In
his knowledge he embraceth all things."
20:100 Whoso shall turn aside from it shall
verily carry a burden on the day of Resurrection:
Under
it shall they remain: and grievous, in the day
of Resurrection, shall it be to them to bear.
On
that day there shall be a blast on the trumpet, and We will gather the wicked
together on that day with leaden eyes:
They
shall say in a low voice, one to another, -- "You tarried but ten days on
earth."
We are
most knowing with respect to that which they will say when the most veracious
of them will say. "You have not tarried above a day."
And
they will ask thee of the mountains: Say: scattering my Lord will scatter them in dust;
And he
will leave them a level plain: thou shalt see
in it no hollows or jutting hills.
On
that day shall men follow their summoner -- he marcheth straight on: and low shall be their voices before the God of
Mercy,n or shalt thou heart aught by the light footfall.
No
intercession shall avail on that day, save his whom the God of Mercy shall
allow to intercede, and whose words he shall approve.
He
knoweth their future and their past; but in their own knowledge they comprehend
it not: --
20:110 And humble shall be their faces before
Him that Liveth, the Self-subsisting: and
undone he, who shall bear the burden of iniquity;
But he
who shall have done the things that are right and is a believer, shall fear
neither wrong nor loss.
Thus
have We sent down to thee an Arabic Koran, and have set forth menaces therein
diversely, that haply they may fear God, or that it may give birth to
reflection in them.
Exalted
then be God, the King, the Truth! Be not hasty in its recital while the
revelation of it to thee is incomplete. Say rather, "O my Lord, increase
knowledge unto me."
And of
old We made a covenant with Adam; but he forgat it; and we found no firmness of
purpose in him.
And
when We said to the angels, "Fall down and worship Adam," they
worshipped all, save Eblis, who refused: and
We said, "O Adam! this truly is a foe to thee and to thy wife. Let him not
therefore drive you out of the garden, and you become wretched;
For to
thee is it granted that thou shalt not hunger therein, neither shalt thou be
naked;
And
that thou shalt not thirst therein, neither shalt thou parch with heat;"
But
Satan whispered him: said he, "O Adam!
shall I shew thee the tree of Eternity, and the Kingdom that faileth not?:"
And
they both ate thereof, and their nakedness appeared to them, and they began to
sew of the leaves of the Garden to cover them, and Adam disobeyed his Lord and
went astray.
20:120 Afterwards his Lord chose him for
himself, and was turned towards him, and guided him.
And
God said, "Get you all down hence, the one of you a foe unto the other.
Hereafter shall guidance come unto you from me;
And
whoso followeth my guidance shall not err, and shall not be wretched:
But
whoso turneth away from my monition, his truly shall be a life of misery:
And We
will assemble him with others on the day of Resurrection, blind."
He
will say, "O my Lord! why hast thou assembled me with others, blind?
whereas I was endowed with sight."
He
will answer, "Thus is it, because our signs came unto thee and thou didst
forget them, and thus shalt thou be forgotten this day."
Even
thus will We recompense him who hath transgressed and hath not believed in the
signs of his Lord; and assuredly the chastisement of the next world will be
more severe and more lasting.
Are
not they, who walk the very places where they dwelt, aware how many generations
we have destroyed before them? Verily in this are signs to men of insight.
And
had not a decree of respite from thy Lord first gone forth, their chastisement
had at once ensued. Yet the time is fixed.
20:130 Put up then with what they say; and
celebrate the praise of thy Lord before the sunrise, and before its setting;
and some time in the night do thou praise him, and in the extremes of the day,
that thou haply mayest please Him.
And
strain not thine eye after what We have bestowed on divers of them -- the
braveries of this world -- that we may thereby prove them. The portion which
thy Lord will give, is better and more lasting.
Enjoin
prayer on thy family, and persevere therein. We ask not of thee to find thine
own provision -- we will provide for thee, and a happy issue shall there be to
piety.
But
they say, "If he come not to us with a sign from his Lord...!" But
have not clear proof for the Koran come to them, in what is in the Books of
old?
And
had We destroyed them by a chastisement before its time, they would surely have
said, "O our Lord! How could we believe if thou didst not send unto us an
Apostle that we might follow thy signs ere that we were humbled and disgraces."