The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

(420)
89. DAYBREAK
A Meccan sura in which God emphasizes (by oath) that the tyrants of the
Prophet’s time will be like those He dealt with in the past. The sura compares
the destiny of the ungrateful with that of the souls at peace.
In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy
1 By the Daybreak, 2 by the Ten Nights, a 3 by the even and the odd, b
4 by the passing night c –– 5 is this oath strong enough for a rational
person?
6 Have you [Prophet] considered how your Lord dealt with [the
people] of Ad, d 7 of Iram, [the city] of lofty pillars, 8 whose like has
never been made in any land, 9 and the Thamud, e who hewed into
the rocks in the valley, 10 and the mighty and powerful f Pharaoh?
11 All of them committed excesses in their lands, 12 and spread corruption
there: 13 your Lord let a scourge of punishment loose on
them. 14 Your Lord is always watchful.
15 [The nature of] man g is that, when his Lord tries him through
honour and blessings, he says, ‘My Lord has honoured me,’ 16 but
when He tries him through the restriction of his provision, he says,
‘My Lord has humiliated me.’ 17 No indeed! You [people] do not
honour orphans, 18 you do not urge one another to feed the poor,
a This refers to the first ten nights of the month of Dhu ’l-Hijjah, sacred before and
after the Prophet’s time, which culminate in the Hajj pilgrimage.
b This has been interpreted in many ways: as a reference to numbers (as translated
here); or e.g. as the multiple (God’s creation) and the One (God Himself).
c The complement of this oath is left unmentioned, to be understood from what
follows. The commentators use this to complete the oath with ‘they will be punished’
based on the context of what follows. The omission reinforces the oath, as one has to
think more carefully in order to grasp it, a device known in Arabic rhetoric as hadhf
al-jawab (cf. 38: 1; 50: 1).
d See 26: 123 ff.
e See 26: 141 ff.
f Dhu’l-awtad, ‘of the stakes’, is explained as a Bedouin expression conveying
strength and power. Another interpretation is that Pharaoh used stakes as implements of
torture.
g Insan ‘man’ occurs sixty-five times in the Quran. It applies to both men and
women, as of course does the generic ‘man’ in English.