________________
XXXIV, 7-13.
THE CHAPTER OF SEBÂ.
151
you to a man who will inform you that when ye are torn all to pieces, then ye shall be a new creation ? he has forged against God a lie, or there is a ginn in him ;'—nay, those who believe not in the hereafter are in the torment and in the remote error!
Have they not looked at what is before them and what is behind them of the heaven and the earth ? if we pleased we would cleave the earth open with them, or we would make to fall upon them a portion of the heaven ; verily, in that is a sign to every repentant servant.
[10] And we did give David grace from us, 'O ye mountains! echo (God's praises) with him, and ye birds !' and we softened for him iron : Make thou coats of mail and adapt the rings thereof, and do right; verily, I at what ye do do look.' And to Solomon the wind; its morning journey was a month, and its evening journey was a month ; and we made to flow for him a fountain of molten brass; and of the ginns some to work before him by the permission of his Lord; and whoso swerves amongst them from our bidding we will give him to taste the torment and the blaze; and they made for him what he pleased of chambers, and images, and dishes like troughs, and firm pots;
-work, O ye family of David! thankfully; few is it of my servants who are thankful.
And when we decreed for him death, naught guided them to his death save a reptile of the earth that ate his staff; and when he fell down it was made manifest to the ginns that, had they but known the unseen, they need not have tarried in the shameful torment".
1 The Mohammedan legend is that Solomon had employed the
Digitized by Google
Digitized by
