S (Saad)
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
Sad. By the Quran, full of admonition! 1 Nay, but the unbelievers are steeped in arrogance and stubborn defiance. 2 Many a generation We did destroy before them – thereupon they cried out whereas it is not the time to escape! 3 And they were surprised that a Herald of Warning came to them from among themselves; and the disbelievers said, “He is a magician, a great liar!” 4 Does he claim that all the deities are [but] one God? Verily, a most strange thing is this!" 5 And the chief persons of them break forth, saying: Go and steadily adhere to your gods; this is most surely a thing sought after. 6 We heard not thereof in the later faith; this is naught but an invention. 7 Has this Exhortation been sent down among us only to him, to the exclusion of all others?” Nay, they are in doubt regarding My Exhortation, and are saying all this because they have not yet had any taste of My chastisement. 8 Or, have they the treasuries of the Mercy of your Lord, the Almighty, the Giving? 9 Or [that] the dominion over the heavens and the earth and all that is between them is theirs? Why, then, let them try to ascend [to God-like power] by all [conceivable] means! 10 This is just one of the disgraced armies, that will be routed there and then. 11 Before them (were many who) rejected messengers,- the people of Noah, and 'Ad, and Pharaoh, the Lord of Stakes, 12 and [the tribe of] Thamud, and the people of Lot, and the dwellers of the wooded dales [of Madyan]: they all were leagued together, [as it were, in their unbelief:] 13 Not one of them but belied the Messengers, therefore My Torment was justified, 14