Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
then fall down in prostration before him.’
30 Thereat the angels prostrated,
all of them together,
31 but not Iblis:
he refused to be among those who prostrated.
32 He said, ‘O Iblis!
What kept you from being
among those who have prostrated?’
33 Said he, ‘I will not prostrate before a human
whom You have created
out of a dry clay [drawn] from an aging mud.’
34 He said, ‘Be gone hence,
for you are indeed an outcast,
35 and indeed the curse shall lie on you
until the Day of Retribution.’1
36 He said, ‘My Lord!
Respite me till the day they will be resurrected.’
37 Said He, ‘You are indeed among the reprieved
38 until the day of the known time.’
39 He said, ‘My Lord!
As You have consigned me to perversity,
I will surely glamorize [evil] for them on the earth,
and I will surely pervert them, all
40 except Your exclusive servants among them.’
41 He said,
‘This is the path [leading] straight to Me.2
1 Or ‘the Day of Judgement.’
2 Read alternatively as hādhā ṣirāṭun ‘alīyyun mustaqīm, meaning ‘this is an exalted straight path.’ This reading is narrated from al-Imam al-Ṣādiq (Majma‘ al- Bayān) and from thirteen other authorities, among them Ya‘qūb, al-Ḍaḥḥāk, Mujāhid, Qatādah, and Ibn Sīrīn. (See Mu‘jam al-Qirā’āt al-Qur’āniyyah)
