Quran — Page 324

and [this despite the fact that even] before thy time We never sent any apostle without having revealed to him that there is no deity save Me, - [and that,] therefore, you shall worship Me [alone]!

And [yet,] some say, “The Most Gracious has taken unto Himself a son”! Limitless is He in His glory! Nay, [those whom they regard as God’s “offspring” are but His] honoured servants:

they speak not until He has spoken unto them, and [whenever they act,] they act at His behest.

He knows all that lies open before them and all that is hidden from them: hence, they cannot intercede for any but those whom He has [already] graced with His goodly acceptance, since they themselves stand in reverent awe of Him.

And if any of them were to say, “Behold, I am deity beside Him” - that one We should requite with hell: thus do We requite all [such] evildoers.

ARE, THEN, they who are bent on denying the truth not aware that the heavens and the earth were [once] one single entity, which We then parted asunder? – and [that] We made out of water every living thing? Will they not, then, [begin to] believe?

And [are they not aware that] We have set up firm mountains on earth, lest it sway with them, and [that] We have appointed thereon broad paths, so that they might find their way,

and [that] We have set up the sky as a canopy well-secured? And yet, they stubbornly turn away from [all] the signs of this [creation],

and [fail to see that] it is He who has created the night and the day and the sun and the moon - all of them floating through space!

AND [remind those who deny thee, O Prophet, that] never have We granted life everlasting to any mortal before thee: but do they, perchance, hope that al­though thou must die, they will live forever?”

Every human being is bound to taste death; and We test you [all] through the bad and the good [things of life] by way of trial: and unto Us you all must return.