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III, 96-105. THE CHAPTER OF IMRÂN'S FAMILY. 59
misbelieve while unto you are recited the signs of God, and among you is His Apostle? But whoso takes tight hold on God, he is guided into the right
way.
O ye who believe! fear God with the fear that He deserves, and die not save ye be resigned.
Take tight hold of God's rope altogether, and do not part in sects; but remember the favours of God towards you, when ye were enemies and He made friendship between your hearts, and on the morrow ye were, by His favour, brothers. Ye were on the edge of a pit of fire, but he rescued you therefrom 1. Thus does God show to you His signs, perchance ye may be guided; [100] and that there may be of you a nation who shall invite to good, and bid what is reasonable, and forbid what is wrong; these are the prosperous.
Be not like those who parted in sects and disagreed after there came to them manifest signs; for them is mighty woe, on the day when faces shall be whitened and faces shall be blackened. As for those whose faces are blackened,—'Did ye misbelieve after your faith, then taste the torment for your misbelief!' But as for those whose faces are whitened, they are in God's mercy, and they shall dwell therein for aye.
These are the signs of God. We recite them to you in truth, for God desires not wrong unto the worlds.
[105] God's is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, and unto God affairs return.
1 Alluding to an occasion in which the ancient rivalry between the two tribes of El Aus and El 'Hazrag, which had been reconciled by Islâm, was on the point of breaking out again.
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