The Qur'an Sura XX — TA. HA.
1TA. HA. Not to sadden thee have we sent down this Koran to thee,✦ Exodus 3:2
2But as a warning for him who feareth;
3It is a missive from Him who hath made the earth and the lofty heavens!
4The God of Mercy sitteth on his throne:
5His, whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth, and whatsoever is between them both, and whatsoever is beneath the humid soil!
6Thou needest not raise thy voice: for He knoweth the secret whisper, and the yet more hidden.
7God! There is no God but He! Most excellent His titles!
8Hath the history of Moses reached thee?
9When he saw a fire, and said to his family, "Tarry ye here, for I perceive a fire:
10Haply I may bring you a brand from it, or find at the fire a guide."
11And when he came to it, he was called to, "O Moses!
12Verily, I am thy Lord:. therefore pull off thy shoes: for thou art in the holy valley of Towa.
13And I have chosen thee: hearken then to what shall be revealed.
14Verily, I am God: there is no God but me: therefore worship me, and observe prayer for a remembrance of me.
15Verily the hour is coming:–I all but manifest it–
16That every soul may be recompensed for its labours.
17Nor let him who believeth not therein and followeth his lust, turn thee aside from this truth, and thou perish.
18Now, what is that in thy right hand, O Moses?"
19Said he, "It is my staff on which I lean, and with which I beast down leaves for my sheep, and I have other uses for it."
20He said, "Cast it down, O Moses!"
21So he cast it down, and lo! it became a serpent that ran along.
22He said, "Lay hold on it, and fear not: to its former state will we restore it."
23"Now place thy right hand to thy arm-pit: it shall come forth white, but unhurt:–another sign!–
24That We may shew thee the greatest of our signs.
25Go to Pharaoh, for he hath burst all bounds."
26He said, "O my Lord! enlarge my breast for me,
27And make my work easy for me,
28And loose the knot of my tongue,
29That they may understand my speech.
30And give me a counsellor from among my family,
31Aaron my brother;
32By him gird up my loins,
33And make him a colleague in my work,
34That we may praise thee oft and oft remember thee,
35For thou regardest us."
36He said, "O Moses, thou hast obtained thy suit:
37Already, at another time, have we showed thee favour,
38When we spake unto thy mother what was spoken:
39'Cast him into the ark: then cast him on the sea [the river], and the sea shall throw him on the shore: and an enemy to me and an enemy to him shall take him up.' And I myself have made thee an object of love,
40That thou mightest be reared in mine eye.
41When thy sister went and said, 'Shall I shew you one who will nurse him?' Then We returned thee to thy mother that her eye might be cheered, and that she might not grieve. And when thou slewest a person, We delivered thee from trouble, and We tried thee with other trial.
42For years didst thou stay among the people of Midian; then camest thou hither by my decree, O Moses:
43And I have chosen thee for Myself.
44Go thou and thy brother with my signs and be not slack to remember me.
45Go ye to Pharaoh, for he hath burst all bounds:
46But speak ye to him with gentle speech; haply he will reflect or fear."
47They said, "O our Lord! truly we fear lest he break forth against us, or act with exceeding injustice."
48He said, "Fear ye not, for I am with you both. I will hearken and I will behold.
49Go ye then to him and say, 'Verily we are Sent ones of thy Lord; send therefore the children of Israel with us and vex them not: now are we come to thee with signs from thy Lord, and, Peace shall be on him who followeth the right guidance.
50For now hath it been revealed to us, that chastisement shall be on him who chargeth with falsehood, and turneth him away."'
51And he said, "Who is your Lord, O Moses?"
52He said, "Our Lord is He who hath given to everything its form and then guideth it aright."
53"But what," said he, "was the state of generations past?"
54He said, "The knowledge thereof is with my Lord in the Book of his decrees. My Lord erreth not, nor forgetteth.
55He hath spread the earth as a bed, and hath traced out paths for you therein, and hath sent down rain from Heaven, and by it we bring forth the kinds of various herbs:
56–'Eat ye, and feed your cattle.' Of a truth in this are signs unto men endued with understanding.
57From it have we created you, and into it will we return you, and out of it will we bring you forth a second time."
58And we shewed him all our signs: but he treated them as falsehoods, and refused to believe.
59He said, "Hast thou come, O Moses, to drive us from our land by thine enchantments?
60Therefore will we assuredly confront thee with like enchantments: so appoint a meeting between us and you–we will not fail it, we, and do not thou–in a place alike for both."
61He said, "On the feast day be your meeting, and in broad daylight let the people be assembled."
62And Pharaoh turned away, and collected his craftsmen and came.
63Said Moses to them, "Woe to you! devise not a lie against God:
64For then will he destroy you by a punishment. They who have lied have ever perished."
65And the magicians discussed their plan, and spake apart in secret:
66They said, "These two are surely sorcerers: fain would they drive you from your land by their sorceries, and lead away in their paths your chiefest men:
67So muster your craft: then come in order: well this day shall it be for him, who shall gain the upper hand."
68They said, "O Moses, wilt thou first cast down thy rod, or shall we be the first who cast?"
69He said, "Yes, cast ye down first." And lo! by their enchantment their cords and rods seemed to him as if they ran.
70And Moses conceived a secret fear within him.
71We said, "Fear not, for thou shalt be the uppermost:
72Cast forth then what is in thy right hand: it shall swallow up what they have produced: they have only produced the deceit of an enchanter: and come where he may, ill shall an enchanter fare."
73And the magicians fell down and worshipped. They said,
74"We believe in the Lord of Aaron and of Moses."
75Said Pharaoh, "Believe ye on him ere I give you leave? He, in sooth, is your Master who hath taught you magic. I will therefore cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, and I will crucify you on trunks of the palm, and assuredly shall ye learn which of us is severest in punishing, and who is the more abiding."
76They said, "We will not have more regard to thee than to the clear tokens which have come to us, or than to Him who hath made us: doom the doom thou wilt: Thou canst only doom as to this present life: of a truth we have believed on our Lord that he may pardon us our sins and the sorcery to which thou hast forced us, for God is better, and more abiding than thou.
77As for him who shall come before his Lord laden with crime–for him verily is Hell: he shall not die in it and he shall not live.
78But he who shall come before Him, a believer, with righteous works,–these! the loftiest grades await them:
79Gardens of Eden, beneath whose trees the rivers flow: therein shall they abide for ever. This, the reward of him who hath been pure."
80Then revealed we to Moses, "Go forth by night with my servants and cleave for them a dry path in the sea;
81Fear not thou to be overtaken, neither be thou afraid."
82And Pharaoh followed them with his hosts, and the whelming billows of the sea overwhelmed them, for Pharaoh misled his people, and did not guide them.
83O children of Israel! we rescued you from your foes; and We appointed a meeting with you on the right side of the mountain; and We caused the manna and the quail to descend upon you:
84"Eat," said We, "of the good things with which we have supplied you; but without excess, lest my wrath fall upon you; for on whom my wrath doth fall, he perisheth outright.
85Surely however will I forgive him who turneth to God and believeth, and worketh righteousness, and then yieldeth to guidance.
86But what hath hastened thee on apart from thy people, O Moses?"
87He said, "They are hard on my footsteps: but to thee, O Lord, have I hastened, that thou mightest be well pleased with me."
88He said, "Of a truth now have we proved thy people since thou didst leave them, and Samiri had led them astray."
89And Moses returned to his people, angered, sorrowful.
90He said, "O my people! did not your Lord promise you a good promise? Was the time of my absence long to you? or desired ye that wrath from your Lord should light upon you, that ye failed in your promise to me?"
91They said, "Not of our own accord have we failed in the promise to thee, but we were made to bring loads of the people's trinkets, and we threw them into the fire and Samiri likewise cast them in, and brought forth to them a corporeal lowing calf: and they said, "This is your God and the God of Moses, whom he hath forgotten."'
92What! saw they not that it returned them no answer, and could neither hurt nor help them?
93And Aaron had before said to them, "O my people! by this calf are ye only proved: surely your Lord is the God of Mercy: follow me therefore and obey my bidding."
94They said, "We will not cease devotion to it, till Moses come back to us."
95He said, "O Aaron! when thou sawest that they had gone astray, what hindered thee from following me? Hast thou then disobeyed my command?"
96He said, "O Son of my mother! seize me not by my beard, nor by my head: indeed I feared lest thou shouldst say,
97Thou hast rent the children of Isreal asunder, and hast not observed my orders."'
98He said, "And what was thy motive, O Samiri?" He said, "I saw what they saw not: so I took a handful of dust from the track of the messenger of God, and flung it into the calf, for so my soul prompted me."
99He said, "Begone then: verily thy doom even in this life shall be to say, 'Touch me not.' And there is a threat against thee, which thou shalt not escape hereafter. Now look at thy god to which thou hast continued so devoted: we will surely burn it and reduce it to ashes, which we will cast into the sea.
100Your God is God, beside whom there is no God: In his knowledge he embraceth all things."
101Thus do We recite to thee histories of what passed of old; and from ourself have we given thee admonition.
102Whoso shall turn aside from it shall verily carry a burden on the day of Resurrection:
103Under it shall they remain: and grievous, in the day of Resurrection, shall it be to them to bear.
104On that day there shall be a blast on the trumpet, and We will gather the wicked together on that day with leaden eyes:
105They shall say in a low voice, one to another,–"Ye tarried but ten days on earth."
106We are most knowing with respect to that which they will say when the most veracious of them will say. "Ye have not tarried above a day."
107And they will ask thee of the mountains: SAY: scattering my Lord will scatter them in dust;
108And he will leave them a level plain: thou shalt see in it no hollows or jutting hills.
109On that day shall men follow their summoner–he marcheth straight on: and low shall be their voices before the God of Mercy, nor shalt thou hear aught but the light footfall.
110No intercession shall avail on that day, save his whom the God of Mercy shall allow to intercede, and whose words he shall approve.
111He knoweth their future and their past; but in their own knowledge they comprehend it not:–
112And humble shall be their faces before Him that Liveth, the Self-subsisting: and undone he, who shall bear the burden of iniquity;
113But he who shall have done the things that are right and is a believer, shall fear neither wrong nor loss.
114Thus have We sent down to thee an Arabic Koran, and have set forth menaces therein diversely, that haply they may fear God, or that it may give birth to reflection in them.
115Exalted then be God, the King, the Truth! Be not hasty in its recital while the revelation of it to thee is incomplete. Say rather, "O my Lord, increase knowledge unto me."
116And of old We made a covenant with Adam; but he forgat it; and we found no firmness of purpose in him.
117And when We said to the angels, "Fall down and worship Adam," they worshipped all, save Eblis, who refused: and We said, "O Adam! this truly is a foe to thee and to thy wife. Let him not therefore drive you out of the garden, and ye become wretched;
118For to thee is it granted that thou shalt not hunger therein, neither shalt thou be naked;
119But Satan whispered him: said he, "O Adam! shall I shew thee the tree of Eternity, and the Kingdom that faileth not?"
120And they both ate thereof, and their nakedness appeared to them, and they began to sew of the leaves of the Garden to cover them, and Adam disobeyed his Lord and went astray.
121Afterwards his Lord chose him for himself, and was turned towards him, and guided him.
122And God said, "Get ye all down hence, the one of you a foe unto the other. Hereafter shall guidance come unto you from me;
123And whoso followeth my guidance shall not err, and shall not be wretched:
124But whoso turneth away from my monition, his truly shall be a life of misery:
125And We will assemble him with others on the day of Resurrection, blind."
126He will say, "O my Lord! why hast thou assembled me with others, blind? whereas I was endowed with sight."
127He will answer, "Thus is it, because our signs came unto thee and thou didst forget them, and thus shalt thou be forgotten this day."
128Even thus will We recompense him who hath transgressed and hath not believed in the signs of his Lord; and assuredly the chastisement of the next world will be more severe and more lasting.
129Are not they, who walk the very places where they dwelt, aware how many generations we have destroyed before them? Verily in this are signs to men of insight.
130And had not a decree of respite from thy Lord first gone forth, their chastisement had at once ensued. Yet the time is fixed.
131Put up then with what they say; and celebrate the praise of thy Lord before the sunrise, and before its setting; and some time in the night do thou praise him, and in the extremes of the day, that thou haply mayest please Him.
132And strain not thine eye after what We have bestowed on divers of them–the braveries of this world–that we may thereby prove them. The portion which thy Lord will give, is better and more lasting.
133Enjoin prayer on thy family, and persevere therein. We ask not of thee to find thine own provision–we will provide for thee, and a happy issue shall there be to piety.
134But they say, "If he come not to us with a sign from his Lord . . .!" But have not clear proofs for the Koran come to them, in what is in the Books of old?
135And had We destroyed them by a chastisement before its time, they would surely have said, "O our Lord! How could we believe if thou didst not send unto us an Apostle that we might follow thy signs ere that we were humbled and disgraced."
136SAY: Each one of us awaiteth the end. Wait ye then, and ye shall know which of us have been followers of the even way, and who hath been the rightly guided.
Suras are in the standard order; verse divisions follow Rodwell's 1861 edition and do not always match the standard ayah numbering.