Ar-Room

Alif. Lam. Mim.

Defeated have been the Byzantines

in the lands close-by; yet it is they who, notwithstanding this their defeat, shall be victorious

within a few years: [for] with God rests all power of decision, first and last. And on that day will the believers [too, have cause to] rejoice

in God’s succour: [for] He gives suc­cour to whomever He wills, since He alone is almighty, a dispenser of grace.

[This is] God’s promise. Never does God fail to fulfill His promise - but most people know [it] not:

they know but the outer surface of this world’s life, whereas of the ultimate things they are utterly un­aware.

Have they never learned to think for them­selves? God has not created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them without [an inner] truth and a term set [by Him]: and yet, behold, there are many people who stubbornly deny the truth that they are destined to meet their Sustainer!

Have they, then, never journeyed about the earth and beheld what happened in the end to those [deniers of the truth] who lived before their time? Greater were they in power than they are; and they left a stronger impact on the earth, and built it up even better than these [are doing]; and to them [too] came their apostles with all evidence of the truth: and so, [when they rejected the truth and thereupon perished,] it was not God who wronged them, but it was they who had wronged themselves.

And once again: evil is bound to be the end of those who do evil by giving the lie to God’s messages and deriding them.

GOD CREATES [man] in the first instance, and then brings him forth anew: and, in the end, unto Him you all will be brought back.

And when the last Hour dawns, those who were lost in sin will be broken in spirit

for they will have no intercessors in the beings to whom they were wont to ascribe a share in God’s divinity, seeing that [by then] they themselves will have ceased to believe in their erstwhile blasphemous fancies.

And when the Last Hour dawns - on that Day will all [men] be sorted out:

as for those who attained to faith and did righteous deeds, they shall be made happy in a garden of delight;