The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

212
The Quran 22: 38
but your piety. He has subjected them to you in this way so that you
may glorify God for having guided you.
Give good news to those who do good: 38 God will defend the
believers; God does not love the unfaithful or the ungrateful.
39 Those who have been attacked are permitted to take up arms
because they have been wronged – God has the power to help
them – 40 those who have been driven unjustly from their homes only
for saying, ‘Our Lord is God.’ If God did not repel some people by
means of others, many monasteries, churches, synagogues, and
mosques, where God’s name is much invoked, would have been
destroyed. God is sure to help those who help His cause – God is
strong and mighty – 41 those who, when We establish them in the
land, keep up the prayer, pay the prescribed alms, command what
is right, and forbid what is wrong: God controls the outcome of
all events.
42 If they reject you [Prophet], so did the people of Noah before
them, and those of Ad, Thamud, 43 Abraham, Lot, 44 Midian. Moses
too was called a liar. I gave the disbelievers time, but in the end I
punished them. How I condemned them! 45 How many towns
steeped in wrongdoing We have destroyed and left in total ruin; how
many deserted wells; how many lofty palaces! 46 Have these people
[of Mecca] not travelled through the land with hearts to understand
and ears to hear? It is not people’s eyes that are blind, but their hearts
within their breasts.
47 They will challenge you [Prophet] to hasten the punishment.
God will not fail in His promise – a Day with your Lord is like a
thousand years by your reckoning. 48 To many a town steeped in
wrongdoing I gave more time and then struck them down: they all
return to Me in the end.
49 Say [Prophet], ‘People, I am sent only to give you clear warning.’
50 Those who believe and do good deeds will be forgiven and have a
generous reward, 51 but those who strive to oppose Our messages and
try in vain to defeat Us are destined for the Blaze. 52 We have never
sent any messenger or prophet before you [Muhammad] into whose
wishes Satan did not insinuate something, but God removes a what
Satan insinuates and then God affirms His message. God is all
a The basic meaning of nasakha is ‘removed’ rather than ‘abrogated’ (al-Mujam
al-Wasit).