9 This dream Muhammad had at Medina, before he set out for al Hudaibiya. His
followers expected its fulfilment within the year, but when the truce
frustrated their hopes, this verse was revealed to pacify them.

10 Dust from the pavement. The Muhammadans who say their prayers on carpets
often place little bricks before them which they touch in prostration with
their forehead.

11 Comp. Mark iv. 28.

12 Lit. legs.


SURA LXVI.-THE FORBIDDING [CIX.]

MEDINA.-12 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

WHY,1 O Prophet! dost thou hold that to be FORBIDDEN which God hath made
lawful to thee, from a desire to please thy wives, since God is Lenient,
Merciful?

God hath allowed you release from your oaths; and God is your master: and He
is the Knowing, Wise.

When the prophet told a recent occurrence as a secret to one of his wives,
and when she divulged it and God informed him of this, he acquainted her with
part and withheld part.2 And when he had told her of it, she said, "Who told
thee this?" He said, "The Knowing, the Sage hath told it me.

"If ye both be turned to God in penitence, for now have your hearts gone
astray . . . .3 but if ye conspire against the Prophet, then know that God is
his Protector, and Gabriel, and every just man among the faithful; and the
angels are his helpers besides.

"Haply if he put you both away, his Lord will give him in exchange other
wives better than you, Muslims, believers, devout, penitent, obedient,
observant of fasting, both known of men and virgins."

O Believers! save yourselves and your families from the fire whose fuel is
men and stones, over which are set angels fierce and mighty: they disobey not
God in what He hath commanded them, but execute His behests.

O ye Infidels! make no excuses for yourselves this day; ye shall surely be
recompensed according to your works.

O Believers! turn to God with the turning of true penitence; haply your Lord
will cancel your evil deeds, and will bring you into the gardens 'neath which
the rivers flow, on the day when God will not shame the Prophet, nor those
who have shared his faith: their light shall run before them, and on their
right hands! they shall say, "Lord perfect our light, and pardon us: for thou
hast power over all things."

O Prophet! make war on the infidels and hypocrites, and deal rigorously with
them. Hell shall be their abode! and wretched the passage to it!

God setteth forth as an example to unbelievers the wife of Noah and the wife
of Lot; they were under two of our righteous servants, both of whom they
deceived: but their husbands availed them nought against God: and it shall be
said "Enter ye into the fire with those who enter."

God also holdeth forth to those who believe the example of the wife of
Pharaoh,4 when she said, "Lord, build me an house with thee in Paradise, and
deliver me from Pharaoh and his doings; and deliver me from the wicked:"

And Mary, the daughter of Imran, who kept her maidenhood, and into whose
womb5 we breathed of our spirit, and who believed in the words of her Lord
and His Scriptures, and was one of the devout.


_______________________

1 The first verses of this Sura were revealed (Hej. 7.) on occasion of
Muhammad's reviving affection for Mary, a Copt slave sent him by the governor
of Egypt, from whom he had recently (verse 3) sworn to his wife Hafsa to
separate entirely. Hafsa, who had been greatly incensed at their amour, of
which Muhammad had himself informed her, communicated the matter in
confidence to Ayesha, from whose altered manner, probably, the prophet found
that his secret had been betrayed. To free Muhammad from his obligation to
Hafsa was the object of this chapter.

2 Muhammad withheld the fact that Ayesha, as well as God, was his informant,
but taxed Hafsa with not having kept his secret.

3 Supply God will pardon you.

4 Asia, a name, perhaps, corrupted from that of Pharaoh's daughter Bithiah. 1
Chron. iv.18.

5 See Sura xxi. 91. Lit. quae rimam suam tuita est, in quam (rimam)
inflavimus Spiritus nostri partem. Thus Beidh.


SURA1 LX.-SHE WHO IS TRIED [CX.]

MEDINA.-13 Versus

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful


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