In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful SAD.1 By the Koran full of warning! In sooth the Infidels are absorbed in pride, in contention with thee. How many generations have we destroyed before them! And they cried for mercy but no time was it of escape! And they marvel that a warner from among themselves hath come to them; and the Infidels say, "This is a sorcerer, a liar: Maketh he the gods to be but one god? A strange thing forsooth is this!" And their chiefs took themselves off. "Go, said they, and cleave steadfastly2 to your gods. Ye see the thing aimed at. We heard not of this in the previous creed.3 It is but an imposture: To him alone of us all hath a book of warning been sent down?" Yes! they are in doubt as to my warnings, for they have not yet tasted my vengeance. Are the treasures of the mercy of thy Lord, the Mighty, the bounteous, in their hands? Is the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth and of all that is between them theirs? Then let them mount up by cords! Any army of the confederates4 shall here be routed. Before them the people of Noah and Ad and Pharaoh the impaler5 treated their prophets as impostors; And Themoud, and the people of Lot, and the dwellers in the forest: these were the confederates. Nought did they all but charge the apostles with falsehood: Just, therefore, the retribution. And these (Meccans) await but one single trumpet blast-There shall be no delaying it- Yet they dare to say, "O our Lord! hasten our lot to us, before the day of reckoning." Put thou up with what they say: and remember our servant David, a man strong of hand6, one who turned him to Us in penitence: We constrained the mountains7 to join with him in lauds at even and at sunrise; And the birds which flocked to him, and would all return to him oft; And we stablished his kingdom: and wisdom, and skill to pronounce clear decisions, did we bestow on him. Hath the story of the two pleaders8 reached thee, O Muhammad, when they mounted the walls of his closet? When they entered in upon David, and he was frightened at them, they said, "Be not afraid; we are two opposing parties: one of us hath wronged the other. Judge therefore with truth between us, and be not unjust, but guide us to the right way. Now this my brother had ninety and nine ewes, and I had but a single ewe; and he said, make me her keeper. And he over-persuaded me in the dispute." He said, "Certainly he hath wronged thee in asking for thine ewe to add her to his own ewes: and truly many associates do one another wrong-except those who believe and do the things that are right; and few indeed are they!" And David perceived that we had tried him; so he asked pardon of his Lord, and fell down and bowed himself and repented. So we forgave him that his sin; and truly he shall have a high rank with Us, and an excellent retreat in Paradise.