The Hijjr Valley (Al-Hijjr)
Allah - beginning with the name of - the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
۞ Alif Lam Ra. Those are the signs of the Book and of a manifest Koran. 1 How strongly the unbelievers will wish that they had been Muslims. 2 Let them eat and enjoy themselves and be diverted by [false] hope, for they are going to know. 3 We never destroyed any town without pre-ordaining the fate of its people. 4 No people can outstrip the term for its destruction nor can it delay it. 5 They say: "O thou to whom the Message is being revealed! truly thou art mad (or possessed)! 6 Why do you not bring to us the angels if you are of the truthful ones? 7 We send not the angels down save with judgment, and then they would not be respited. 8 Indeed We have sent down the Qur’an, and indeed We Ourselves surely are its Guardians. (This is one of the miracles of the Qur’an – no one has been able to change even one letter of its text, despite every effort. It has remained in its original form since the 6th Century (A. D) and will remain so forever. Other Holy Books such as the Torah and the Bible have lost their originality.) 9 We had also sent apostles to people of earlier persuasions. 10 But never once an apostle came to them at whom they did not scoff. 11 So We make it enter the hearts of the sinners. 12 They do not believe in the Truth and they exactly follow the tradition of the ancient (unbelievers) 13 and even if We opened to them a door from heaven, and they began ascending through it, 14 Even then they would say, “Our sights have been hypnotised – in fact, a magic spell has been cast upon us.” 15