The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

282
The Quran 36: 19
an evil omen. If you do not stop, we shall stone you, and inflict a
painful torment on you.’ 19 The messengers said, ‘The evil omen is
within yourselves. Why do you take it as an evil omen when you are
reminded of the Truth? You are going too far!’ 20 Then, from the
furthest part of the city, a man came running. He said, ‘My people,
follow the messengers. 21 Follow them: they are not asking you to
reward them and they are rightly guided. 22 Why should I not worship
the One who created me? It is to Him that you will be returned.
23 How could I take besides Him any other gods, whose intercession
will not help me and who would not be able to save me if the Lord of
Mercy wished to harm me? 24 Then I would clearly be in the wrong.
25 I believe in your Lord, so listen to me.’
26 He was told, ‘Enter the Garden,’ a so he said, ‘If only my people
knew 27 how my Lord has forgiven me and set me among the highly
honoured.’ 28 After him We did not send any army from heaven
against his people, nor were We about to: 29 there was just one blast,
and they fell down lifeless.
30 Alas for human beings! Whenever a messenger comes to them
they ridicule him. 31 Do they not see how many generations We have
destroyed before them, none of whom will ever come back to them? b
32 [Yet] all of them will be brought before Us. 33 There is a sign for
them in the lifeless earth: We give it life and We produce grain from it
for them to eat; 34 We have put gardens of date palms and grapes in
the earth, and We have made springs of water gush out of it 35 so that
they could eat its fruit. It was not their own hands that made all this.
How can they not give thanks? 36 Glory be to Him who created all the
pairs c of things that the earth produces, as well as themselves and
other things they do not know about. 37 The night is also a sign for
them: We strip the daylight from it, and – lo and behold! – they are
in darkness. 38 The sun, too, runs its determined course laid down for
it by the Almighty, the All Knowing. 39 We have determined phases
for the moon until finally it becomes like an old date-stalk. 40 The sun
cannot overtake the moon, nor can the night outrun the day: each
floats in [its own] orbit.
41 Another sign for them is that We carried their seed in the laden
a The implication may be that he was martyred, as his people die after him.
b Another interpretation of this phrase is ‘none of them can trace [their genealogies]
back to them’, i.e. God wiped out the entire line.
c Or ‘varieties’.