But they say, "If he come not to us with a sign from his Lord . . .!"30 But
have not clear proofs 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 disgraced."

SAY: Each one of us awaiteth the end. Wait ye then, and ye shall know which
of us have been followers of the even way, and who hath been the rightly
guided.


_______________________

1 The first 14 or 16 verses of this Sura are said to have induced Omar to
embrace Islam (His. 226. Ibn Sâd, i. and v. Comp. Weil, p. 60. Causs. i. 396
ff.) in the sixth year before the Hejira.

2 Freytag supposes these letters to mean, Hush! but see Sura lxviii. 1, p.
32.

3 Lit. if thou raise thy voice.

4 Lit. guidance. Moses had lost his way, say the Commentators, when
journeying to Egypt to visit his mother.

5 The Muhammadan Commentators tell how Moses when a child burnt his tongue
with a live coal. The same story is found in Midr. Jalkut on Ex. c. 166, and
in Shalsheleth Hakabalah, p. 5, b. Ed. Amsterd.

6 Lit vizir.

7 Or, strengthen my back.

8 The form of the word in the original is not the pure Hebraic, but the later
Rabbinic form.

9 See Sura [lxxix.] xxviii. 11, 12.

10 What is their condition after their death as to happiness or misery.
Beidh. whom Sale follows. But the word state, which Mar. renders mens, refers
rather to their creed. "How," enquires Pharaoh, "do you explain the fact that
the generations of men have always practised a different worship?"

11 Lit. pairs.

12 The Midrasch Tanchumah on Ex. vii. gives a very similar dialogue between
Pharaoh and Moses.

13 Lit. the day of ornament.

14 In punishing. Beidh.

15 To recompense. Beidh.

16 As the garden is said in Sura lxxxviii. to be lofty in point of situation,
this frequently recurring phrase may mean that rivers run at its base. The
Commentators, however, generally understand it to imply that the rivers flow
beneath its shades or pavilions.

17 Lit. and there overwhelmed them of the sea that which overwhelmed them.

18 The 70 elders who were to have accompanied him.

19 That is, the Samaritan. This rendering, which is probably the true
explanation of the word Samiri, involves a grievous ignorance of history on
the part of Muhammad. Selden (de diis Syr. Syn. i. ch. 4) supposes that
Samiri is Aaron himself, the Shomeer, or keeper of Israel during the absence
of Moses. Many Arabians identify him with the Micha of Judges xvii. who is
said to have assisted in making the calf (Raschi, Sanhedr. 102, 2 Hottinger
Hist. Orient. p. 84). Geiger suggests that Samiri may be a corruption of
Samael. See next note. But it is probable that the name and its application
in the present instance, is to be traced to the old national feud between the
Jews and Samaritans. See De Sacy, Chrestom. i. p. 189, who quotes Abu Rihan
Muhammad as stating that the Samaritans were called Al-limsahsit, the people
who say, "Touch me not" (v. 97, below), and Juynboll Chron. Sam. (Leid. 1848)
p. 113. Sale also mentions a similar circumstance of a tribe of Samaritan
Jews dwelling on one of the islands in the Red Sea.

20 "The calf came forth (Ex. xxxii. 24) lowing and the Israelites beheld it.
R. Jehuda saith, Samuel entered into it and lowed in order to mislead
Israel." Pirke R. Eliezer, § 45.

21 From the track of Gabriel's horse, or of Gabriel himself.

22 Lit. no touch.

23 I have adopted the word leaden as expressive of the idea implied in the
original word, viz. grey or greyish blue; hence, dulled, dimmed. The Arabians
have a great aversion to blue and grey eyes as characteristic of their
enemies the Greeks. The word, however, may also mean blind. Comp. v. 124, 5.

24 Lit. the most excellent or just of them in his way: dignitate, Mar. But
Kam. in Freyt. (iii. 150) justissimus eorum, simillimus veracibus. The sense
of the last clause is, "Yes have not tarried even so much as ten days, such,
now that we look back upon it, is the brevity of life." See Sura [lxiv.]
xxiii. 115.


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