Quran — Page 461

Could, then, one whose bosom God has opened wide with willingness towards self-surrender unto Him, so that he is illumined by a light [that flows] from his Sustainer, [be likened to the blind and deaf of heart]? Woe, then, unto those whose hearts are hardened against all remembrance of God! They are most obviously lost in error!

God bestows from on high the best of all teachings in the shape of a divine writ fully consistent within itself, repeating each statement [of the truth] in manifold forms [a divine writ] whereat shiver the skins of all who of their Sustainer stand in awe: [but] in the end their skins and their hearts do soften at the remembrance of [the grace of] God. Such is God’s guidance: He guides therewith him that wills [to be guided] whereas he whom God lets go astray can never find any guide

Could, then, one who shall have nothing but is [bare] face to protect him from the awful suffering [that will befall him] on Resurrection Day [be likened to the God-conscious]? [On that Day,] the evildoers will be told: “Taste [now] what you have earned [in life]!”

Those who lived before them did [too] give the lie to the truth - whereupon suffering befell them without their having perceived whence it came:

and thus God let them taste ignominy [even] in the life of this world. Yet [how] much greater will be the [sinners’] suffering in the life to come - if they [who now deny the truth] but knew it!

THUS, INDEED, have We propounded unto men all kinds of parables in this Qur’an, so that they might bethink themselves; [and We have revealed it]

as a discourse in the Arabic tongue, free of all devious­ness, so that they might become conscious of God.

[To this end,] God sets forth a parable: A man who has for his masters several partners, [all of them] at variance with one another, and a man depending wholly on one person: can these two be deemed equal as regards their condition? [Nay,] all praise is due to God [alone]: but most of them do not understand this.

Yet, verily, thou art bound to die, [O Muhammad,] and, verily, they, too, are bound to die:

and then, behold, on the Day of Resurrection you all shall place your dispute before your Sustainer.