i. (470).

6 Præditi (manibus) virtute. Mar.

7 Comp. Ps. cxlviii. 9, 10.

8 Two angels who pretended to appeal to David in order to convince him of his
sin in the matter of Uriah's wife. Comp. I Sam. xii.

9 The Psalms, if we suppose with Nöldeke, p. 99, that David is still
addressed: the Koran, if with Sale we refer the passage to Muhammad.

10 The Commentators say that the word used in the original implies that the
mares stood on three feet, and touched the ground with the edge of the fourth
foot.

11 Solomon, in his admiration of these horses, the result, we are told, of
David's or his own conquests, forgot the hour of evening prayer, and when
aware of his fault commenced their slaughter. The Tr. Sanhedr. fol. 21,
mentions Solomon's love for horses, and that he determined to have a large
stud; yet not to send the people to Egypt (Deut. xvii. 16) but to have them
brought to him out of Egypt (I Kings x. 28).

12 One of the Djinn. The absurd fiction may be seen in extenso in Sale.
Compare Tr. Sanhedr. fol. 20, b. and Midr. Jalkut on I Kings vi. § 182.

13 Thus the second Targum on Esther i. 2, mentions the four different kinds
of Demons which were "given into the hand" of Solomon-a legend derived from a
misunderstanding of Eccl. ii. 8.

14 The fountain which had sprung up. To this history the Talmudists have no
allusion.

15 Thy wife;-on whom he had sworn that he would inflict an hundred blows,
because she had absented herself from him when in need of her assistance, or
for her words (Job ii. 9). The oath was kept, we are told, by his giving her
one blow with a rod of a hundred stalks. This passage is often quoted by the
Muslims as authorising any similar manner of release from an oath
inconsiderately taken.

16 Lit. men of hand and of sight.

17 Lit. or do our eyes wander from them.

18 See verses 9, 26, above. It seems to have been one of the peculiarities of
Muhammad, as a person very deficient in imagination, to dwell upon and repeat
the same ideas, with an intensity which is at once an evidence of deep
personal conviction and consciousness, of the simple Arabian especially.

19 The connection between the concluding episode and the preceding part of
the Sura does not seem very clear. It probably originated at a different but
uncertain period.

20 About the creation of man.

21 Comp. Sura [xci.] ii. 28, ff.

22 Comp. Ps. civ. 4.

23 Lit. stoned. See Sura xv. 34, p. 114.


SURA XXXVI.-YA. SIN [LX.]

MECCA.-83 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

YA. SIN.1 By the wise Koran!

Surely of the Sent Ones, Thou,

Upon a right path!

A revelation of the Mighty, the Merciful,

That thou shouldest warn a people whose fathers were not warned and therefore
lived in heedlessness!

Just, now, is our sentence2 against most of them; therefore they shall not
believe.

On their necks have we placed chains which reach the chin, and forced up are
their heads:

Before them have we set a barrier and behind them a barrier, and we have
shrouded them in a veil, so that they shall not see.

Alike is it to them if thou warn them or warn them not: they will not
believe.

Him only shalt thou really warn, who followeth the monition and feareth the
God of mercy in secret: him cheer with tidings of pardon, and of a noble
recompense.

Verily, it is We who will quicken the dead, and write down the works which
they have sent on before them, and the traces which they shall have left
behind them: and everything have we set down in the clear Book of our
decrees.3



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