Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of The Glorious Koran. An Explanatory Translation (1930)
35. On the day when it will (all) be heated in the fire of hell, and their foreheads and their flanks and their backs will be branded therewith (and it will be said unto them): Here is that which ye hoarded for yourselves. Now taste of what ye used to hoard.
36. Lo! the number of the months with Allah is twelve months by Allah’s ordinance in the day that He created the heavens and the earth. Four of them are sacred: that is the right religion. So wrong not yourselves in them. And wage war on all of the idolaters as they are waging war on all of you. And know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him).
37. Postponement (of a sacred month)1 is only an excess of disbelief whereby those who disbelieve are misled; they allow it one year and forbid it (another) year, that they may make up the number of the months which Allah hath hallowed, so that they allow that which Allah hath forbidden. The evil of their deeds is made fair-seeming unto them. Allah guideth not the disbelieving folk.
38. O ye who believe! What aileth you that when it is said unto you: Go forth in the way of Allah, ye are bowed down to the ground with heaviness. Take ye pleasure in the life of the world rather than in the Hereafter? The comfort of the life of the world is but little in the Hereafter.
39. If ye go not forth He will afflict you with a painful doom, and will choose instead of you a folk other than you. Ye cannot harm Him at all. Allah is Able to do all things.
40. If ye help him not, still Allah helped him when those who disbelieve drove him forth, the second of two; when they two 2 were in the cave, when he said unto his comrade: Grieve not. Lo! Allah is with us. Then Allah caused His
1 The idolaters would postpone a sacred month in which war was forbidden, when they wanted to make war, and make up for it by hallowing another month.
2 The Prophet and Abû Bakr during the Flight from Mecca to Al-Madînah.
