Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
to speak in a manner which is the best.
Indeed Satan incites ill feeling between them,
and Satan is indeed man’s
manifest enemy.
54 Your Lord knows you best.
He will have mercy on you, if He wishes,
or punish you, if He wishes,
and We did not send you to watch over them.
55 Your Lord knows best whoever is in the heavens
and the earth.
Certainly We gave some prophets an advantage
over others,
and We gave David the Psalms.
56 Say, ‘Invoke those whom you claim [to be gods]
besides Him.
They have no power to remove your distress
nor to bring about any change [in your state].
57 They [themselves] are the ones who supplicate,
seeking a recourse to their Lord,1
whoever is nearer [to Him],
expecting His mercy
and fearing His punishment.’
Indeed your Lord’s punishment
is a thing to beware of.
58 There is not a town but We will destroy it
before the Day of Resurrection,
or punish it with a severe punishment.
1 Or ‘Those whom they (i.e., the polytheists) invoke, themselves seek a recourse to their Lord.…’
