Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
exemplary punishments.
Indeed your Lord is forgiving to mankind
despite their wrongdoing,
and indeed your Lord is severe in retribution.
7 The faithless say,
‘Why has not some sign been sent down to him
from his Lord?’
You are only a warner,
and there is a guide for every people.
8 Allah knows what every female carries [in her womb],
and what the wombs reduce
and what they increase,1
and everything is by [precise] measure with Him,
9 the Knower of the sensible and the Unseen,
the All-great, the All-sublime.
10 It is the same [to Him] whether any of you speaks secretly,
or does so loudly,
or whether he lurks in the night,
or is open to view in daytime.2
11 He has guardian angels, to his front
and his rear,
who guard him by Allah’s command.
Indeed Allah does not change a people’s lot,
unless they change what is in their souls.
And when Allah wishes to visit ill on a people,
there is nothing that can avert it,
and they have no protector besides Him.
1 That is, what the wombs reduce or increase of the embryo or the foetus or the time of gestation.
2 Or ‘marches in daytime.’
