Vanity (Al-Zukhruf)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Ha-Mim. 1 By the clear Book, 2 Lo! We have appointed it a Lecture, in Arabic that haply ye may understand. 3 And Lo! in the Source of Decrees, which We possess, it is indeed sublime, decisive. 4 [O YOU who deny the truth!] Should We, perchance, withdraw this reminder from you altogether, seeing that you are people bent on wasting your own selves? 5 And how many a prophet did We send to people of olden times! 6 And never came there a prophet to them but they mocked him. 7 And We destroyed greater than them in [striking] power, and the example of the former peoples has preceded. 8 If thou askest them, 'Who created the heavens and earth?' they will say, 'The All-mighty, the All-knowing created them.' 9 He who made the earth a bed for you, and laid out tracks upon it so that you may find the way; 10 And He it is who sends down, again and again, waters from the sky in due measure: and [as] We raise therewith dead land to life, even thus will you be brought forth [from the dead]. 11 And He Who created pairs of all things, and made for you of the ships and the cattle what you ride on, 12 so that you can sit upon their backs and then remember the Favors of your Lord and say: 'Exaltations to Him who has subjected these to us otherwise, we ourselves were not capable of it, 13 Hence, verily, it is unto Him that we must always turn." 14 And they allot to Him a portion of His bondmen! Lo! man is verily a mere ingrate. 15