Quran — Page 442

And after that, no host out of heaven did We send down against his people, nor did We need to send down any:

nothing was [needed] but one single blast [of Our punishment] - and lo! they became as still and silent as ashes.

OH, THE REGRETS that [most] human beings will have to bear! Never has an apostle come to them without their deriding him!

Are they not aware of how many a generation We have destroyed before their time, [and] that those [that have perished] will never return to them,

and [that] all of them, all together, will [in the end] before Us be arraigned?

And [yet,] they have a sign [of Our power to create and to resurrect] in the lifeless earth which We make alive, and out of which We bring forth grain, whereof they may eat;

and [how] We make gardens of date-palms and vines [grow] thereon, and cause springs to gush [forth] within it,

so that they may eat of the fruit thereof, though it was not their hands that made it. Will they not, then, be grateful?

Limitless in His glory is He who has created opposites in whatever the earth produces, and in men’s own selves, and in that of which [as yet] they have no knowledge.

And [of Our sway over all that exists] they have a sign in the night: We withdraw from it the [light of] day - and lo! they are in darkness.

And [they have a sign in] the sun: it runs in an orbit of its own [and] that is laid down by the will of the Almighty, the All-Knowing;

and [in] the moon, for which We have determined phases [which it must traverse] till it becomes like an old date-stalk, dried-up and curved:

[and] neither may the sun overtake the moon, nor can the night usurp the time of day, since all of them float through space [in accordance with Our laws].