al-Mu`minun (The Believers) at IslamAwakened.com

23:6 But absolved are they to satisfy their instinctive sexual desire with those to whom they are matrimonially united or with those whom they choose to marry from those on hand -and there they incur no blame

23:7 And those who do not confine their sexual activity within these limitations will have violated and disregarded the set limits instituted by Allah

23:8 Who are trustworthy, an attribute including

23:9 And those who faithfully observe their act of worship and all it entails

23:10 Such persons are the inheritors of Allah's mercy and blessings here and Hereafter

23:11 They shall inherit Paradise -the garden of Eden- where they enjoy the surpassing beauty and supreme bliss and Wherein they will have passed through nature to Eternity

23:12 In point of fact We brought man to being by special creation from a line of wet and soft earth matte

23:13 Then We made him evolve from a Notfa Amshag (union of male & female seeds) the Zygot which We embedded in the depth of a safe and secure position, the wom

23:14 Then We made the Notfa develop into a clinging organism*, Then We made the clinging organism develop into a bolus** -like mass of coherent body of matter. Then We made the bolus- like mass develop into bones and We clothed the bones with flesh. Out of this We raised a different being. Glorified be Allah and extolled be His glorious attributes; He is the Unique Creator

23:15 Thereafter, shall all of you come upon the encounter with death -and be deposited in the graves-

23:16 And at the predetermined point of time set for the Day of Judgement shall all of you be resurrected and restored to life

23:17 And We created seven heavens that hang high above your heads and We are not oblivious of Our creation -it is We Who maintain them in existence and in order, not to mention precision

23:18 And We sent down from the floor of the vault of heaven rain water in due measure and We settled it on the planet earth partly without and partly within - enough to effect the necessary equilibrium, between the opposing forces of land and water, between cloud formation and fresh water in rivers and lakes maintaining life, between the clouds and the water deposited underground- and We are certainly able to make it vanish

23:19 We made it instrumental in springing up for you gardens and orchards of date-palms and vines supplying you with abundance of fruits affording you delight

23:20 in addition to the tree (olive tree) springing out of Mount Sinai producing oil and nutrition -best unsaturated fats, protein, calcium salts, iron, Phosphorus, vitamin A and B - for those who eat therefrom

23:21 And you have in cattle a divine sign emblematic of Allah's Omnipotence and Authority, a sign for you to ponder. From their bellies We supply you with a pure drink -milk- and other great benefits you advantage yourselves thereof

23:22 And on their backs and on board ships you are carried -from one place to another-

23:23 - Yet people have always been averse to Allah's divine message, past and present and this is exampled in Noah's people and in those who followed - We sent NUh (Noah) with Our divine message to his people. He said to there " My people, I advise you to acknowledge Allah and to worship Him with appropriate acts and rites. You have no Ilah but Him. Will you entertain the profound reverence dutiful to Him!"

23:24 But the leaders of infidelity among his people exclaimed: "He is only a human like yourselves" They added "he simply wishes to take precedence of you and to claim supereminence for holiness and high virtues". "And had Allah willed", they added, "He would have sent down angels to serve as His Messengers." "We never heard of such a notion voiced by our ancestors"

23:25 "Indeed", they continued, "he is but a man ruinously imprudent, possessed or insane. Watch him for sometime with patience, his madness may subside or else he would deserve destruction"

23:26 There, did NUh invoke Allah for His aid: "O Allah, my Creator", he prayed, "give me victory over them, they have accused me of falsehood"

23:27 There and then, We inspired him. " Construct the Ark, " We said, "under Our supervision and according to Our inspired divine instructions. "And when Our command comes to pass and you see the water bubbling up and rising in billows and erupting through the earth's surface inundating the land, you just carry with you on board ship a pair-a male and a female- of every kind (or possibly two pairs of every species of the living creatures) together with your family except those against whom Allah has already pledged His word." "And do not talk to Me O NUh about those wrongful of actions nor plead on their behalf They shall most certainly be drowned."

23:28 "And when you and those in your company have embarked, you express your gratitude to Allah in words, thus:" "Our bosoms surge forth and answer thanks to Allah Who has saved us and delivered us from those wrongful of actions."

23:29 And pray: "O Allah, my Creator, help me disembark compassed about by Your blessing and let the place where I make abode be a place of security, consolation and solace. You are the Ultimate Who can accommodate whom You will to the best

23:30 These are tokens signalizing Allah's Omnipotence and Authority and We have always been testing people for their true belief and inclination

23:31 Thereafter, We brought about another generation, the Adite

23:32 And We sent to them a Messenger whom We chose from among them to convey to them Our divine message. He said to them: "Worship Allah with appropriate acts and rites, you have no Ilah other than Him. Will you not then entertain the profound reverence dutiful to Him!"

23:33 The leaders among his people who denied Allah and rejected the idea of having audience of Him in Day of Judgement said: " But he is only a human like yourselves. He eats the same food you eat and drinks of what you drink." thereby denying what We bestowed on them of what ministered to their enjoyment and content in life

23:34 "And", they added, "should you follow a man like yourselves your hopes shall be doomed to disappointment and you will he great losers."

23:35 "Does he promise you", they said, "that after you have died and been reduced to dust and degenerate bones, you will be resurrected and restored to life!"

23:36 "How inconceivable and how far from the truth is that you are promised!"

23:37 "In fact", they said, "there is only this present life. We die and as the grass upon the earth shall our posterity be, they shall also die and their posterity shall live until time does away with life and reduces this world to a useless form, and all time shall appear but short time but indeed as no time and never shall we be resurrected."

23:38 "He is simply a man," they continued, "who cheaply and viciously relates to Allah falsehood, and never shall we acknowledge him nor recognize his mission."

23:39 And there, he prayed: "O Allah, my Creator, give me victory over them; they have accused me of falsehood."

23:40 "Rest assured," said Allah to His Messenger, " their defiance and their pride are short-lived and soon enough shall they be really sorry and shall weep a rain of sorrows."

23:41 And there, in due time were they justly overtaken by a direful cry from heaven's realm stirring up a merciless blast reducing them to an assemblage of scum, and so away with the wrongful of actions

23:42 And We raised after them other generations

23:43 No people or nation can predate their set period of time nor can they postdate it either -includes: span of prosperity, of misery, of other conditions as well as that of life

23:44 Thereafter, We sent Messengers, one succeeding another, and as often as a Messenger presented himself to his people he was accused of falsehood. In consequence, We punished them successively following One upon another and We made them the talk of all towns; Away with people who just refuse to acknowledge Allah

23:45 Then We sent Mussa and his brother Harun (Aaron) well equipped with divine signs serving to demonstrate delegated divine power and Authority

23:46 We sent them to Pharaoh and the chief peers of his realm, but they did not answer their hopes and they prided themselves on their arrogance and non - courteous refusal, and displayed inordinate self- esteem and undue assumption of dignity

23:47 And they said to them: "Shall we submit to two men like ourselves while their people are reduced by us to a servile state?"

23:48 And they accused them of falsehood, and in consequence were they added to the list of those who perished

23:49 And We gave Mussa the Book of truth AL-Tawrah -the Torah- so that his people -the Israelites- may hopefully be guided into all truth

23:50 And We made the son of Maryam (Mary) – Isa (Jesus)- and his mother an emblem of Our Omnipotence and Authority and We provided them with a shelter on a high land affording them security and peace of mind, and beneath which flowed a spring

23:51 -We said to each and all Our Messengers- "O you Messengers:" exhort your people to: eat of all that has been rendered lawful and all that is worthy, good and wholesome and imprint your deeds with wisdom and piety, for I am 'AlimUn (Omniscient) of all that you do

23:52 "All of you are but one people and you constitute one nation. Allah's message is one. His system of faith and worship is one and I am Allah, your Creator, therefore, I exact from you obedience and that you entertain the profound reverence dutiful to Me."

23:53 Yet they -the people- were divided among themselves and set at variance and the ties among them were severed. Instead of unity in feeling, action and purpose, they set their actual sectarian practice, each rejoicing with his own views

23:54 Therefore, leave them O Muhammad for the time swimming in the depth of error and ignorance which have reached up unto heaven, there is a fitting point of time for every event

23:55 Do they -the infidels- think that because We bestow on them wealth and progeny

23:56 We are pleased with their perverted adoration and by consequence hasten on to make all Our grace deservedly abound in them! To the contrary We give them enough rope to allow them free scope of action to commit themselves, but they do not have enough insight to look beneath the surface nor do they apprehend such matters with their senses

23:57 Conversely, thos

23:58 b) Who sincerely acknowledge their Creator's revelations and His authoritative divine signs

23:59 c) Who do not incorporate with Allah, their Creator, other deities

23:60 d) Who give in benevolence, no matter what, lifting to Allah their inward sight and laying to their hearts their fate in Day of Judgement, an event they realize however unseen and approximate however remote

23:61 These are they who do strive to imprint their deeds with wisdom and piety and hasten to do more and hasten to gain more of Allah's mercy and blessings

23:62 And on no soul do We impose what is beyond its capability nor more than it can bear, and We have a volume in which all records of deeds and actions are kept and it simply speaks like a book and no one shall ever be wronged

23:63 But they -the infidels- are oblivious of all this and their hearts are sunk under the vexations of their minds, and besides that they engage themselves in work of irreverence and of evil that is wrought by want of thought

23:64 And when We lay hold upon the affluent among them who live in lust and wed them to calamities they groan out their souls and invoke Allah for relief

23:65 "Do not ask for help now -here- or relief -Hereafter- for no help nor relief, shall you expect from Us ever."

23:66 "My revelations were recited to you throughout and My evident signs were presented to you, but you always shunned the truth and turned the other way,"

23:67 "Ostentatiously exhibiting pride and inordinate self-esteem, making jokes and making it -the Quran- the object of your jokes rendering it as something ridiculous that should be disregarded and neglected."

23:68 Do they -these infidels- not pause to think and employ the faculty of reason and reflect upon the discourse reaching their ears to realize that it is the truth personified! or have they received a message unheard of nor was it conveyed to their forefathers

23:69 Or do they not` recognize their Messenger Muhammad who is one of them and therefore do not avow him as one of their own

23:70 Or do they accuse him of being possessed, ruinously imprudent or insane! Indeed, he is a person steadfast in adherence to His Creator and His cause and he brought them -these Pagans- the very truth guiding into all truth, but how hateful to most of them is the truth

23:71 Indeed, if the truth were to accord with their desires, the heavens and the earth and all created beings, the animate and the inanimate therein would have gone to the bad and broken into corruption and fallen into disorder. But We have sent them the spirit of truth guiding into all truth and refers them directly to Allah. Yet they evade the troth. They are averse to admitting the truth and they shy off all that puts them in mind of the duties owed to Allah

23:72 Or do you ask them O Muhammad to pay you for the divine service you render! Never! and they do know that. And they had better realize that the reward granted by Allah, your Creator, far excels what is given by all others, for He is the best Purveyor Who makes provision for the needs of all

23:73 Besides, you are indeed the best guide who does lead them to righteousness, the path of Allah

23:74 But those who deny Resurrection and Judgement Hereafter never deviate into sense. On the contrary, they deviate themselves from the path of righteousness

23:75 And if We had extended to them Our mercy and blessings and delivered them from what was burdensome and exhaustive to their minds they would have sunk under the vexations of their minds, plunged into the abyss of wickedness and carried their transgression to excess

23:76 In fact, We formerly inflicted them with punishment and penalized them for disobedience and transgression that they may hopefully repent. But they never submitted nor humbled themselves to Allah, their Creator, nor did they entreat Him for mercy nor did they entreat of Him what He would have mercifully given

23:77 They persisted in wrong -doing until We closed the gate of mercy in their faces and opened the gate of torture and put them to torment (that they may be brought back to their senses) But to the contrary. they only nursed despair which led to recklessness and to heedlessness arising from despair

23:78 But Allah is He Who blessed you, people with the faculties of hearing and sight -faculties divine- and He implanted in you the seat of feeling, understanding and thought. Yet how little you render thanks or express gratitude in acknowledgement of His favours

23:79 And He is it Who established you on earth and made you increase in number by natural generation and in the end shall all of you be thronged before Him

23:80 And it is He who gives life and causes animate existence and it is He Who occasions the moment of death and deprives of animate existence. And to Him is related the natural phenomenon of the variations in duration and the constant alternation and succession symbolic of the night and the day and their contingent physical phenomena. Will you not therefore think in a sensible manner and employ the faculty of reason in forming conclusions

23:81 No. they express their thoughts in words identical with those uttered by their ancestors

23:82 They say: "is it at all conceivable that when we die and be reduced to dust and bones we could be resurrected and restored to life!"

23:83 "We had been promised that before," they add, "and so had been our fathers. We think this is nothing but fables of old."

23:84 Ask them O Muhammad: "To whom belong the earth and all the animate and the inanimate created beings thereon! Tell me if you know!"

23:85 Ironically, they will say: "To Allah", then say to them: "Can you then not reflect!"

23:86 Ask them: "Who is the Ilah and Creator of the seven heavens and the Sovereign Who occupies the Supreme Throne!"

23:87 Again they will say: "Allah", then say to them; "Will you not then entertain the profound reverence dutiful to Him!"

23:88 Ask them: "Who is He Who has the griping hands of the law of nature and the controlling power over the universe and protects the whole and all in all but needs no protection!" Tell me if you kno

23:89 Again they will say: "Allah," then say to them: " then how can you be befooled so as to cause what is false to be accepted as true!"

23:90 But We have constantly presented to them the truth at the hands of all the Messengers but they persistently counterchange the truth with falsehood and lie in their teeth

23:91 Never did Allah take, adopt or beget a son nor did He share His sovereignty with any god; for, if He did, then each Allah would have had a kingdom of his own independent of the others and each would have established his own laws and made sure to exalt himself above the others. Glory be to Him and extolled are His glorious attributes. He is infinitely far beyond all that they falsely attribute to Him

23:92 The Omniscient of all the unseen, the hidden and the unknown and the Omniscient of all that is perceived by sight and all that is evidently known, Praise be to Him and extolled are His glorious attributes. He is infinitely far beyond all those whom they incorporate with Him

23:93 And pray: "O Allah, my Creator, if You have destined me to see in my life time the scene of the devastating retributive punishment which they have been promised,"

23:94 "Then, I pray and beseech You O Allah, my Creator, not to make me a constituent part of the whole who are wrongful of actions."

23:95 However, We are certainly able to let you see with your own eyes O Muhammad the scene of the promised devastating retributive punishmen

23:96 Repress your offended and wounded feelings and repel evil with what is gracious in words or in action

23:97 And pray: "To You O Allah, my Creator, do I commit myself counter to the satanic instigations suggested to the mind"

23:98 "And to You O Allah, nay Creator, do I commit myself counter to their presence near me."

23:99 And when any of them -these infidels- who have been promoting falsehood comes upon the encounter with death, he prays and beseeches Allah, his Creator to have him sent back to life

23:100 He says: "If given the chance" I may be able to do all I have neglected and left undone and imprint my deeds with wisdom and piety. Never. But this is a wish he expresses in words! Once the souls have been disembodied and crossed to the other world, it is then a one - way journey with no return. Behind them there is an impassable barrier barricading the passage back until the Day of Resurrection when people are then restored to life

23:101 And when the trumpet is sounded in Day of Judgement no ties of kinship of any kind or degree shall be of avail in accomplishing a purpose. Ties are simply dissolved and each one is tried upon no other recommendation than the quality of his own deeds nor shall they be able to discourse on any point

23:102 There and then, he whose deeds of wisdom and piety surpass in weight shall he and such persons be the fortunate who shall rejoice beyond a common joy

23:103 And he whose inequities surpass in weight on one scale of the balance shall he and such persons be losers. Their iniquities and unjust treatment of Our revelations and signs have lost them their souls

23:104 Their faces shall be scorched with the Fire and their countenances shall be expressive of pain and torture and their souls shall be bewailing their misfortune, their suffering and their ill - fate and bewailing at the day that they were born

23:105 And there, they will be told: "Were not My revelations recited to you throughout and My evident signs presented to you! and did you not always treat them as false statements made with the intent to deceive!"

23:106 And there, shall they say: "O Allah, our Creator, our pride and misgivings got the better of our prudence and we were certainly lost in the maze of error."

23:107 "O Allah, our Creator", they shall add, "deliver us out of it- of Hell. We will conform to Your system of faith and worship and if we should turn renegades then We will be wrongful of actions."

23:108 "Sink to the bottom of it" they will be told, "with hardship and torture and be buried into oblivion and do not talk to Me."

23:109 When some of My servants prayed for mercy and forgiveness and prayed: "O Allah, our Creator, we have acknowledged Your divine nature and conformed to Your system of faith and worship, forgive us and have mercy on us. you are the Most Merciful of all who can extend mercy"

23:110 You just made them the object of a joke and turned their prayer into ridicule that you forgot all about My message and you laughed them to scorn."

23:111 "But as you can see I have rewarded them this Day for their patience and forbearance under provocation of any kind, for bearing with others their faults and limitations and for their constancy in labour, exertion and effort. They are the winners of victory."

23:112 "How long", says Allah, "do you think you sojourned on earth year in and year out!"

23:113 "A day or a part of a day", they say "but You may ask those -the angels- who keep count."

23:114 "You only sojourned for a short while if you had only known!"

23:115 "Did you honesty think that We created you and brought you in the world below purposelessly or just for fun and that you would not be brought back to Us when there is much to answer for!"

23:116 Exalted be Allah and extolled are His glorious attributes, the Supreme Sovereign, the Truth personified; there is no Ilah but He, The Sovereign Who occupies the Most Honourable and Supreme Throne

23:117 And he who invokes, or incorporates with Allah, another llah without presenting evidence convincing the mind shall have much to answer for. This is in reply to the charges put against him by Allah, his Creator, in Day of Judgement. Never shall the infidels who deny Allah and His statutes find an instance of physical or spiritual prosperity Hereafter

23:118 And so, pray to Allah invoking Him for mercy, expressing your thoughts in words, thus: "O Allah, my Creator, You ascribed mercy and forgiveness, forbearance and indulgence unto Yourself. Forgive me and have mercy on me and on those whom You will; You are indeed the Most Merciful Whose mercy is extended to the wide circle of the all."