Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
they say, ‘Do you recount to them
what Allah has revealed to you,
so that they may argue with you therewith
before your Lord?
Do you not apply reason?’
77 Do they not know that Allah knows
whatever they hide
and whatever they disclose?
78 And among them are the illiterate
who know nothing of the Book
except hearsay,1
and they only make conjectures.
79 So woe to those who write the Book
with their hands
and then say, ‘This is from Allah,’
that they may sell it for a paltry gain.
So woe to them for what their hands have written,
and woe to them for what they earn!
80 And they say, ‘The Fire shall not touch us
except for a number of days.’
Say, ‘Have you taken a promise from Allah?
If so, Allah shall never break His promise.
Or do you ascribe to Allah
what you do not know?’
81 Certainly whoever commits misdeeds
and is besieged by his iniquity
— such shall be the inmates of the Fire,
and they shall remain in it [forever].
1 That is, what they learnt through word of mouth from their scribes and priests, rather than from a direct knowledge of the scriptures. Or ‘hopes,’ or ‘lies.’
