Quran — Page 162

Said the great ones among his people, who gloried in their arrogance: "Most certainly, O Shu'ayb, we shall expel thee and thy fellow-believers from our land, unless you indeed return to our ways!" Said [Shu'ayb]: "Why, even though we abhor [them]?

We should be guilty of blaspheming against God were we to return to your ways after God has saved us from them! It is not conceivable that we should return to them-unless God, our Sustainer, so wills. All things does our Sustainer embrace within His knowledge; in God do we place our trust. O our Sustainer! Lay Thou open the truth between us and our people -for Thou art the best of all to lay open the truth!”

But the great ones among his people, who were bent on denying the truth, said [to his followers]: "Indeed, if you follow Shu'ayb, you will, verily, be the losers!"

Thereupon an earthquake overtook them: and then they lay lifeless, in their very homes, on the ground -

they who had given the lie to Shu'ayb - as though they had never lived there: they who had given the lie to Shu'ayb -it was they who were the losers!

And he turned away from them, and said: "O my people! Indeed, I delivered unto you my Sustainer's message and gave you good advice: how, then, could I mourn for people who have denied the truth?"

AND NEVER YET have We sent a prophet unto any community without trying its people with misfortune and hardship, so that they might humble themselves;

then We transformed the affliction into ease of life, so that they throve and said [to themselves], "Misfortune and hardship befell our forefathers as well -whereupon We took them to task, all of a sudden, without their being aware [of what was coming].