________________
148
THE QUR'ÂN.
XXXIII, 55-63
speak unveiled) to their fathers, or their sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or what their right hands possess; but let them fear God,—verily, God is witness over all.
Verily, God and His angels pray for the prophet. O ye who believe! pray for him and salute him with a salutation 1!
Verily, those who annoy God and His Apostle, God will curse them in this world and the next, and prepare for them shameful woe!
And those who annoy the believers for what they have not earned, such have to bear (the guilt of) calumny and obvious sin.
O thou prophet! tell thy wives and thy daughters, and the women of the believers, to let down over them their outer wrappers; that is nearer for them to be known and that they should not be annoyed; but God is forgiving, merciful.
[60] Surely if the hypocrites and those in whose hearts is a sickness and the insurrectionists in Medinah do not desist, we will surely incite thee against them. Then they shall not dwell near thee therein save for a little while. Cursed wherever they are found, -taken and slain with slaughter!
God's course with those who have passed away before: and thou shalt never find in God's course any alteration.
The folk will ask thee about the Hour; say, 'The knowledge thereof is only with God, and what is to make thee perceive that the Hour is haply nigh?'
1 See p. 145, note 1.
Digitized by Google
