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IX, 70-75.
THE CHAPTER OF REPENTANCE.
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discussed. Their works are vain in this world and the next, and they it is who lose.
Did there not come to them the declaration of those who were before them ? of the people of Noah and 'Ad and Thamad, and of the people of Abraham, and the people of Midian ? and of the overturned (cities) 1 ? Their apostles came to them with manifest signs; for God would not wrong them, but it was themselves they wronged.
And the believers, men and women, are some the patrons of others; they bid what is reasonable, and forbid what is wrong, and are steadfast in prayer, and give alms, and obey God and His Apostle. On these will God have mercy ; verily, God is mighty, wise!
God has promised to believers, men and women, gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell therein for aye; and goodly places in the garden of Eden, But good-will from God is the greatest of all! that is the mighty happiness!
O thou prophet! strive strenuously against the misbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern against them; for their resort is hell, and an ill journey shall it be.
[75] They swear by God they did not speak it, but they did speak the word of misbelief; and they disbelieved after they had embraced Islâm, and they designed what they could not attain; and they only disapproved it because God and His Apostle had enriched them of His grace? If they turn again 'tis
Sodom and Gomorrah. • A plot had been set afoot at Medinah to kill Mohammed, and was only abandoned because of the increased trade and prosperity which Mohammed's residence then brought.
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