And strain not thine eye after what We have bestowed on divers of them-the braveries of this world-that we may thereby prove them. The portion which thy Lord will give, is better and more lasting.
Enjoin prayer on thy family, and persevere therein. We ask not of thee to find thine own provision-we will provide for thee, and a happy issue shall there be to piety.
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.
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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.