055 - Sūrat ar-Rahmān

In the name of Allah (who is) Rahmān (and) Rahīm.

[For explanation, see Sūrat al-Fātiha: 1]

1

The Compassionate One, Allahu ta’ālā, exalted be He,

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Has taught, whomever He will, the Qur'ān.

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He created man, the species [mankind],

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teaching him the [coherent] speech, utterance.

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The sun and the moon follow a reckoning, they move according to a [strict] calculation,

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and the grass, all stalkless vegetation, and the trees, that [vegetation] which possesses stalk, prostrate, comply with what is required of them.

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And He has raised the heaven and set up the balance, He has established justice,

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[declaring] that you should not contravene, that is to say, so that you may not do wrong, with regard to the balance, that [instrument] with which one weighs.

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And observe the weights with justice, fairly, and do not skimp the balance, [do not] decrease [the value of] what is being weighed.

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And the earth, He placed it, He fixed it [in place], for [all] creatures: man, jinn and others.

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In it are fruits and, the familiar, date-palms with sheaths, the spathes containing its flowers,

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and grain, such as wheat and barley, with husk, and fragrant herb.

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So which of your Rabb's favours, graces, will you deny? (tukadhdhibān is mentioned thirty one times; the interrogative is meant [to be understood] as an affirmative, judging by what al-Hākim [al-Naysābūrī] reported [by way of an isnād] from Jābir [b. 'Abd Allāh al-Ansārī], who said, 'The Messenger (rasūl) of Allahu ta’ālā "sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam" was reciting surāt al-Rahmān to us, and when he completed it, he said, “What is wrong with you that you have been silent [throughout]? Verily the jinn are more responsive than you. Not once did I recite this verse to them - So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny? - but that they said, “Not one of your graces, our Rabb, do we deny, for [all] praise belongs to You”').

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He created man, Adam, of dry clay (salsāl, a dry hollow mud producing an echo if tapped), resembling the potter's (fakhkhār, clay that has been baked),

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and He created the Jann, the father of the jinn, namely, Iblīs, of a smokeless flame of fire.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Rabb of the two Easts, [the points of] the winter sunrise and the summer sunrise, and Rabb of the two Wests: likewise [the two points of sunset].

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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He has loosed the two waters, the sweet and the salty; [and so] they meet, in the perception of the eye.

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Between them there is a barrier, by His power, exalted be He. They do not overstep, neither of the two encroaches upon the other to become mixed with it.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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From [both of] them, from the point at which they [seem to] meet - but which is actually from [only] one of the two, and that is, the salt water - is brought forth (yukhraju, passive, may also be read as active, yakhruju, 'emerge') the pearl and the coral (marjān, these are red pieces of shell, or small pearls).

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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His are the crafted ships [that sail] in the sea [appearing] like landmarks, like mountains in their tremendous size and height.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Everyone who is on it, that is, [on] the earth, of animal beings, will perish (man, 'who', is used to indicate predominance of rational beings);

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yet there will remain the countenance of your Rabb, His Essence, [the countenance] of majesty, magnificence, and munificence, towards believers, through His graces to them.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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All that is in the heavens and the earth implore Him, either by way of speech or by their very state [of dependence on Him], for the strength which they require for worship, [for] provision, forgiveness and other things. Every day, [all the] time, He is upon some matter, something that He manifests in accordance with what He has decreed since pre-eternity, such as the giving of life, the bringing of death, exalting and abasing [individuals], giving abundantly and withholding, responding to a supplicating person and giving the one requesting [something] and so on and so forth.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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We will attend to you, We shall turn to reckon with you, O you two heavy ones!, mankind and jinn.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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O company of jinn and humans, if you are able to pass through, to exit from, the confines, the regions, of the heavens and the earth, then pass through! - a command [meant] to challenge them to what they are incapable of [doing]. You will not pass through except with a sanction, [except] with some power, and you have no power for such a thing.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Against you will be unleashed a heat of fire (shuwāz, can either mean that the flame thereof has no smoke or [that it does have it] with it) and a flash of brass, without any flame, and you will not be able to seek help, you will not be able to defend yourselves against this, nay, it will drive you to the site of the Gathering.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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And when the heaven is split open, when it becomes open with [many] gates [in preparation] for the descent of the angels, and it turns crimson (wardatan, [literally, 'a rose'], in other words, red like this [rose]), like tanned leather, red skins, in contrast to its [the heaven's] usual appearance (the response to idhā, 'when', is [along the lines of] fa-mā a'zama'l-hawli, 'How great will be the terror then!').

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Thus on that day no man will be questioned about his sin, nor any jinn, about his sin; but they are questioned on some other occasion: By your Rabb, We shall question them all [Q.15:92] (al-jānn in this instance and in what will follow denotes the jinn, and also in both cases al-ins denotes human beings).

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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The guilty will be recognised by their mark: blackened faces and bruised eyes; so they will be seized by the forelocks and the feet.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny? the forelock of each one of them will be bound to his foot either from the back or from the front and he is then hurled into the Fire, and it will be said to them:

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'This is Hell which the guilty [were wont to] deny!'

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They shall pass round, they shall pace, between it and boiling hot water, [water] of extreme temperature, which they are given to drink every time they call to be rescued from the heat of the Fire (ānin is defective, like qādin).

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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But for those who feared, that is, for every one of them, or for all of them together, the station of their Rabb, the standing before Him for the Reckoning and therefore refrained from being disobedient to Him, there will be two gardens.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Both with (dhawātā, the dual form of the regular form dhawāt, with its lām [its third consonant] is changed into a yā') [abundant] branches (afnān is the plural of fanan, similar [in pattern] to talal [atlāl]).

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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In both of them there are two flowing springs.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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In both of them, of every fruit (fākiha) of [the fruits of] this world - or [it, fākiha, means] all those things in which one delights (yutafakkahu bihi) - there are two kinds, two varieties, one juicy, one dried, and those which in this world are bitter, like colocynth, will be sweet [therein].

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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[They will be] reclining (muttaki'īna is a circumstantial qualifier operated by an omitted [verb], that is to say, yatana''amūna, they will enjoy bliss [while reclining]') upon couches lined with [heavy] silk brocade, (istabraq) thick or coarse silk, the outer lining being of fine silk (sundus). And the fruits of both gardens will be near, so that it may be reached by the one standing up, the one sitting down or the one lying down.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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In them, in the two gardens and what they comprise of upper chambers and palaces, are maidens of restrained glances, [restricting] their eyes to those spouses of theirs from among [either] the men or the jinn who are reclining, [maidens] who have not been touched, [who] have not been deflowered - and these [maidens] are [either] houris or women of this world who [will] have been created [anew], by any man or jinn before them.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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It is as though they are rubies, in their purity, and pearls, in their fairness.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Is the reward of goodness, [manifested] through obedience, anything but goodness?, [granted] through bliss?

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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And beside these, two mentioned gardens, there will be two [other] gardens, in addition, for those who feared the standing before their Rabb.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Deep green (mudhāmmatān, [this means that they are almost] black on account of the intensity of their greenness).

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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In both of them will be two gushing fountains, rushing with water, unceasing.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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In both of them will be fruits and date-palms and pomegranates, the [latter] two [fruits] being from among these [fruits of the two gardens]; but it is also said that they belong to [the fruits of] some other [garden].

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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In them, that is, in the two gardens and their palaces and what they comprise, are maidens [who are] good, in nature [and with], beautiful, faces.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Houris (hur, this means maidens with intense black eyes set against the [intense] whiteness [of the iris]) secluded, concealed, in pavilions, made of studded gems, annexed to the palaces, like boudoirs.

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Untouched by any man before them, before these [soon-to-be] spouses of theirs, or jinn.

75

So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Reclining, namely, their spouses (muttaki'īna, syntactically, it is as [described] above) upon green cushions (rafraf is the plural of rafrafa, which can mean [either] 'carpets' or 'cushions') and lovely druggets ('abqariyyin, the plural of 'abqariyya, which are velvet carpets).

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So which of your Rabb's favours will you deny?

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Blessed be the Name of your Rabb, He of Majesty and Munificence (as [explained] above; the word ism is extra).