dots-menu
×
Home  »  library  »  prose  »  The Chapter of the Zodiacal Signs

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Chapter of the Zodiacal Signs

By The Koran

Translation of Edward Henry Palmer in ‘The Sacred Books of the East’

IN the name of the merciful and compassionate God.

By the heaven with its zodiacal signs!

And the promised day!

And the witness and the witnessed!

The fellows of the pit were slain;

And the fire with its kindling,

When they sat over it

And witnessed, that while, what they were doing with those who believed.

And they took not vengeance on them save for their belief in God, the mighty, the praiseworthy,

Who is the kingdoms of the heavens and the earth;

For God is witness over all!

Verily, those who make trial of the believers, men and women, and do not repent, for them is the torment of hell, and for them is the torment of the burning!

Verily, those who believe and act aright, for them are gardens beneath which rivers flow,—that is the great bliss!

Verily, the violence of thy Lord is keen!

Verily, he produces and returns, and he is the forgiving, the loving, the Lord of the glorious throne; the doer of what he will!

Has there come to thee the story of the hosts of Pharaoh and Tharmud?

Nay, those who misbelieve do say it is a lie; but God is behind them—encompassing!

Nay, it is a glorious Qur’an in a preserved tablet.