Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
dwell in conceit and defiance.
3 How many a generation We have destroyed before them!
They cried out [for help],
but it was no more the time for escape.
4 They consider it odd that there should come to them
a warner from among themselves,
and the faithless say,
‘This is a magician, a mendacious liar.’
5 ‘Has he reduced the gods to one god?
This is indeed an odd thing!’
6 Their elite go about [urging others]:
‘Go and stand by your gods!
This is indeed the desirable thing [to do].
7 We did not hear of this in the latter-day creed.1
This is nothing but a fabrication.
8 Has the reminder been sent down to him
out of [all of] us?’
Rather they are in doubt concerning My reminder.
Rather they have not yet tasted My punishment.
9 Do they possess
the treasuries of the mercy of your Lord,
the All-mighty, the All-munificent?
10 Do they own the kingdom of the heavens
and the earth
and whatever is between them?
[If so,] let them ascend [to the higher spheres]
by the means 2 [of ascension].
1 That is, in the polytheistic creed prevalent in pre-Islamic Arabia.
2 Or ‘let them ascend by the contrivances.’ Or ‘let them ascend by the ladder,’ or ‘let them ascend into the heavens.’
