The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930)/The Dawn
SÛRAH LXXXIX
Al-Fajr takes its name from verse 1.
A very early Meccan Sûrah.
THE DAWN
Revealed at Mecca
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
1 By the Dawn
2 And ten nights,[1]
3 And the Even and the Odd,
4 And the night when it departeth,
5 There surely is an oath for thinking man.
6 Dost thou not consider how thy Lord dealt with (the tribe of) A'âd,
7 With many-columned[2] Iram,
8 The like of which was not created in the lands;
9 And with (the tribe of) Thamûd, who clove the rocks in the valley;
10 And with Pharaoh, firm of might,
11 Who (all) were rebellious (to Allah) in these lands,
12 And multiplied iniquity therein?
13 Therefor thy Lord poured on them the disaster of His punishment.
14 Lo! thy Lord is ever watchful.
15 As for man, whenever his Lord trieth him by honouring him, and is gracious unto him, he saith: My Lord honoureth me.
16 But whenever He trieth him by straitening his means of life, he saith: My Lord despiseth me.
17 Nay, but ye (for your part) honour not the orphan
18 And urge not on the feeding of the poor,
19 And ye devour heritages with devouring greed
20 And love wealth with abounding love.
21 Nay, but when the earth is ground to atoms, grinding, grinding,
22 And thy Lord shall come with angels, rank on rank,
23 And hell is brought near that day; on that day man will remember, but how will the remembrance (then avail him)?
24 He will say: Ah, would that I had sent before me (some provision) for my life!
25 None punisheth as He will punish on that day!
26 None bindeth as He then will bind.
27 But ah! thou soul at peace!
28 Return unto thy Lord, content in His good pleasure!
29 Enter thou among My bondmen!
30 Enter thou My Garden!
- ↑ Of the month of pilgrimage.
- ↑ I had written "many-columned," following the run of commentators, who take the word 'imâd to mean columns, pillars, when I happened upon Ibn Khaldûn's diatribe against that rendering and all the legends to which it has given rise, in the preface to the Prolegomena. The word meant "tent-poles" to the Arabs of the Prophet's day, as Ibn Khaldûn points out. In view of recent discoveries in the Yaman, however, I prefer the usual rendering.