I require not sustenance from them, neither require I that they feed me:
Verily, God is the sole sustainer: possessed of might: the unshaken!
Therefore to those who injure thee shall be a fate like the fate of
their fellows of old. Let them not challenge me to hasten it.
Woe then to the infidels, because of their threatened day.
_______________________
1 Lit. (I swear) by those which scatter (i.e., the rain) with a scattering, (2) and by those which carry a burden, (3) and by those which run lightly, (4) and by those which divide a matter, or by command. The participles are all in the feminine: hence some interpret verse 1 of winds; verse 2 of clouds; verse 3 of ships; verse 4 of angels.
2 Comp. note at Sura lvi. 1, p. 65.
3 That is, this oath is for the confirmation of the truth, as ye are wont to confirm things one among another by an oath.
4 Comp. Sura xi. 72, and xv. 51. From the want of connection with what precedes, it is highly probable that the whole passage from verse 24 60 did not originally form a part of this Sura, but was added at a later period, perhaps in the recension of the text under Othman.