AL BURUJ (The Constellations)
In the Name of God,1 the Gracious, the Merciful 2
1 By the sky, the signs of the Zodiac;
2 By the promised day;
3 By one that witnesses, and the subject of the witness;
4 Woe to the makers of the pit,
5 Fire supplied with fuel:
6 Behold! They sat over against it,
7 And they witnessed what they were doing against the believers.
8 And they ill-treated them for no other reason than that they believed in God, exalted in power, worthy of all praise!
9 Him to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth! And God is witness to all things.
10 Those who persecute the believers, men and women, and do not turn in repentance, will have the penalty of hell: they will have the penalty of the burning fire.
11 For those who believe and do righteous deeds, will be gardens beneath which rivers flow: that is the great salvation.
12 Truly strong is the grip of your Lord.
13 It is he who creates from the very beginning, and he can restore.
14 And he is the oft-forgiving, full of loving kindness,
15 Lord of the throne of glory,
16 Doer of all that he intends.
17 Has the story reached you, of the forces
18 Of Firaun and the Thamud?
19 And yet the unbelievers rejected!
20 But God encompasses them from behind!
21 No, this is a glorious Quran,
22 Preserved on a tablet!
- God, in Arabic allah, referring to the one true God, as opposed to an idol or “god.” It is the Arabic equivalent of elohim and eloah (Hebrew), alaha (Syriac), and theos (Greek), all of which accurately translate into English as “God.” This translation choice is consistent with respected English Quran translations including those of A. Yusuf Ali (original edition), S.H. Nasr (Study Quran), T.B. Irving, and T. Itani (Clear Quran). ↩︎
- the Gracious, the Merciful, the highlighting of God’s grace and mercy predates the Quran, coming down from the many hundreds of references in the Taurat, Zabur, and Injil. A few samples follow:
Taurat, Exodus 34:6 — …YAHWEH, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth.
Zabur 145:8 — YAHWEH is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great loving kindness.
Taurat, Joel 2:13 — Tear your heart, and not your garments, and turn to YAHWEH your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and relents from sending calamity.
Taurat, Yunus 4:2 — …I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.”
Injil, 1 Timothy 1:2 — …Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and AL-MASIH ‘ISA our Lord.
Injil, Hebrews 4:16 — Let us therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need. ↩︎