The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

2: 91
The Cow 11
orphans and the poor; speak good words to all people; keep up the
prayer and pay the prescribed alms.’ Then all but a few of you
turned away and paid no heed. 84 We took a pledge from you, ‘Do not
shed one another’s blood or drive one another from your homelands.’
You acknowledged it at the time, and you can testify to this. 85 Yet
here you are, killing one another and driving some of your own
people from their homes, helping one another in sin and aggression
against them. If they come to you as captives, you still pay to set
them free, although you had no right to drive them out. a So do you
believe in some parts of the Scripture and not in others? The punishment
for those of you who do this will be nothing but disgrace in
this life, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be condemned to
the harshest torment: God is not unaware of what you do. 86 These
are the people who buy the life of this world at the price of the
Hereafter: their torment will not be lightened, nor will they be
helped.
87 We gave Moses the Scripture and We sent messengers after
him in succession. We gave Jesus, son of Mary, clear signs and
strengthened him with the Holy Spirit. So how is it that, whenever
a messenger brings you something you do not like, you become
arrogant, calling some impostors and killing others? 88 They say, ‘Our
hearts are impenetrably wrapped [against whatever you say],’ but
God has rejected b them for their disbelief: they have little faith.
89 When a Scripture came to them from God confirming what they
already had, and when they had been praying for victory against the
disbelievers, even when there came to them something they knew [to
be true], they disbelieved in it: God rejects those who disbelieve.
90 Low indeed is the price for which they have sold their souls by
denying the God-sent truth, out of envy that God should send His
bounty to any of His servants He pleases. The disbelievers have
ended up with wrath upon wrath, and a humiliating torment awaits
them. 91 When it is said to them, ‘Believe in God’s revelations,’ they
reply, ‘We believe in what was revealed to us,’ but they do not believe
in what came afterwards, though it is the truth confirming what they
a Razi: although the Jews fought each other in alliance with different Arab tribes,
when their side captured a Jew from another side, they would pay to have them released,
as they said this was required by the Torah.
b Laana in Arabic dictionaries gives the meaning of tarada ‘to reject’, ‘to drive away’
rather than ‘to curse’.