The isolated letters: what they do

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1. 114

   Refuge in the Guardian of mankind

   6 verses

   The film opens on a command, "Say", and on words he will speak himself: "I take refuge in the Guardian of mankind" (114:1), the Sovereign of mankind, the Deity of mankind. The one who receives these words is alone; he has nothing yet to transmit, he must first take shelter.

   Only one danger is named, and it does not come from outside: the whisperer who withdraws, who whispers into the chests of mankind, "whether of the Occulted or of mankind" (114:6). Before speaking to others, he guards himself against what speaks within him.

   « I take refuge in the Guardian of mankind » 114:1

   « from the ill of the whisperer who withdraws » 114:4

   « whether of the Occulted or of mankind » 114:6

   ↓ The same command "Say" returns at once: after the Guardian of mankind, the Guardian of the Breakthrough.

2. 113

   The Guardian of the Breakthrough

   5 verses

   Again "Say". This time he takes refuge in the Guardian of the Breakthrough, "from the ill of what He has created" (113:2).

   Three ills then pass before the camera: a darkness that penetrates, those who blow and blow again into the knots, and the envier, "from the ill of an envier when he envies" (113:5). Nothing is narrated: dangers named, and the shelter. After the danger within comes the danger without; he is now guarded on both sides.

   « I take refuge in the Guardian of the Breakthrough » 113:1

   « from the ill of a darkness when it penetrates » 113:3

   « from the ill of an envier when he envies » 113:5

   ↓ Sheltered, he receives under the same command "Say" the words that tell in whose name he will speak.

3. 112

   God, the Absolute Singularity

   4 verses

   A third time, "Say". Before any message, he learns whom he is dealing with and in whose name he will speak: "He is God, the Absolute Singularity" (112:1). God, the Impenetrable.

   Two negations close off all filiation, "He has not begotten, and has not been begotten" (112:3), and none is His counterpart. No one else is on stage, neither story nor people. The shelter and the Name are given; he can now enter the world of men.

   « He is God, the Absolute Singularity. » 112:1

   « He has not begotten, and has not been begotten. » 112:3

   « And none is His counterpart. » 112:4

   ↓ After the One who has not begotten, the next sura shows a man and his wife whose goods do not save them.

4. 111

   The father of the flame and his wife

   5 verses

   No one receives the command to speak: God intervenes alone. The first sentence falls on a man designated by a nickname: "May the two hands of the father of the flame go to perdition, and he himself has gone to perdition" (111:1).

   What he possessed does not protect him: "His goods and what he acquired have availed him nothing" (111:2). The shot widens to the couple: he will burn in a fire of flame, and his wife as well, the one who ceaselessly carries the firewood, a rope of twisted fiber around her throat. She is not her husband's shadow: she has her own gestures, and her own fate.

   It is the first warning of the Book read in this direction, and it establishes from the outset that goods do not save. The same sentence will return for the stingy man: "And his goods will not avail him when he falls" (92:11).

   « May the two hands of the father of the flame go to perdition » 111:1

   « His goods and what he acquired have availed him nothing. » 111:2

   « the one who ceaselessly carries the firewood » 111:4

   ↓ After the man whose goods do not save him, the next sura announces the help of God and men entering in crowds.

5. 110

   The help and the opening

   3 verses

   Nothing has yet been said to the people, and already a promise is made to him for a moment to come: "When the help of God comes, and the opening" (110:1). The one who listens is alone, and the text shows him the final scene before the first.

   He sees mankind "entering the Law of God in crowds" (110:2). On that day, he does not celebrate his victory: he glorifies his Guardian with praise and seeks His forgiveness, "for He is the One who ever turns back" (110:3). The crowds will return at the close of the section, on the Day of Separation: "and you come in crowds" (78:18).

   « When the help of God comes, and the opening » 110:1

   « you see mankind entering the Law of God in crowds » 110:2

   « so glorify, with praise, your Guardian, and seek His forgiveness » 110:3

   ↓ After the promise, the message begins: the next sura is the first declaration addressed to the people.

6. 109

   To you your Law

   6 verses

   This is the true beginning of the message. The same command, "Say", but this time he turns toward others and speaks to them face to face: "O you who disown!" (109:1).

   He says what he does not do, and what they do not do: he does not obey what they obey, nor what they have obeyed, and they do not obey what he obeys. No threat, no compulsion: a line is drawn.

   Then the sentence that founds all that follows: "To you your Law, and to me my Law" (109:6). The separation begins here with speech; it will be completed on the Day that closes the section, the Day of Separation. Further on, Ibrahim and those with him will say to their people: "We are indeed quit of you and of what you obey" (60:4).

   « O you who disown! » 109:1

   « I do not obey what you obey » 109:2

   « To you your Law, and to me my Law. » 109:6

   ↓ After speaking to the people, he is himself addressed: the next sura tells him what he has received.

7. 108

   The Abundance conferred

   3 verses

   The camera comes back to him, and God speaks to him face to face: "We have indeed endowed you with the Abundance" (108:1). He of whom the text will say further on that he was found an orphan, then indigent, is no longer indigent: "Did He not find you indigent and enrich you?" (93:8).

   The gift comes first, the command follows from it: "So make the Contact for your Guardian, and give generously" (108:2). The one who has received gives in turn.

   A last word targets the one who hates him: "who is himself the Cut-Off One" (108:3). It is not the messenger who is cut off, it is the hater.

   « We have indeed endowed you with the Abundance. » 108:1

   « So make the Contact for your Guardian, and give generously » 108:2

   « it is he who hates you who is himself the Cut-Off One. » 108:3

   ↓ He must give generously; the next sura shows the man who does the opposite.

8. 107

   The one who roughly pushes away the orphan

   7 verses

   He is asked a question, and shown a man: "Have you seen the one who denies the Due?" (107:1). This denial is not seen in his words, but in his gestures.

   Before the camera, an orphan is pushed away, a destitute person waits: "He is the one who roughly pushes away the orphan, and does not urge the feeding of the destitute" (107:2-3). It is the exact reverse of what has just been commanded to the endowed messenger: to give generously.

   Then woe is announced to those who make the Contact "yet are absent-minded about their Contact" (107:5), who act out of ostentation and hinder assistance. The two gestures commanded in 108, the Contact and the gift, are emptied here: one is done to be seen, the other is hindered.

   « Have you seen the one who denies the Due? » 107:1

   « He is the one who roughly pushes away the orphan, and does not urge the feeding of the destitute. » 107:2

   « and hinder assistance » 107:7

   ↓ After the one who leaves the destitute without food, the next sura speaks to a tribe that its Guardian fed against hunger.

9. 106

   The Guardian of this House

   4 verses

   The exposition becomes precise: a place, a tribe, routes. A tribe is named, the Quraysh, with what holds them together, the journey of winter and summer. At the center of their life, a House.

   They are asked one thing only: "let them obey the Guardian of this House" (106:3). The reason is concrete: He fed them against hunger and secured them against fear. They have food and security; around them, others have neither.

   This House is not theirs. It was set "for mankind equally, whether one dwells there or is passing through" (22:25), as "a place to come back to, and a security" (2:125). Those who keep it have forgotten this first role: "And their Contact, near the House, was nothing but a tumult and a barring" (8:35).

   « their harmony of the journey of winter and summer » 106:2

   « let them obey the Guardian of this House » 106:3

   « who fed them against hunger and secured them against fear. » 106:4

   ↓ The next sura shows these same keepers an example they have before their eyes: the overturned city.

10. 105

    The companions of unreason

    5 verses

    A question is put to the one who can see: "Have you not seen how your Guardian dealt with the companions of unreason?" (105:1). This is not a distant story: he is asked to look.

    The questions follow the order of events: their scheme led astray, massive birds sent upon them, hurling "stones of formed clay" (105:4), and finally men reduced to the state of eaten husk.

    These stones of formed clay fall, in the whole Book, only here and on the city of Lut, turned upside down, of which the text adds: "and it is not far from the wrongdoers" (11:83). To the same listeners he will say: "And you surely pass by them in the morning, and at night" (37:138).

    The same question, word for word, will open further on the review of the Aad, the Thamud and Fir'awn. The example is given to the keepers of the House at their door: an overturned city, wrongdoers crushed, within sight.

    « Have you not seen how your Guardian dealt with the companions of unreason? » 105:1

    « which were hurling stones of formed clay at them » 105:4

    « the state of eaten husk » 105:5

    ↓ Wrongdoers crushed despite their scheme; the next sura shows the one who amasses and thinks his goods have made him eternal.

11. 104

    Cast away into the Crusher

    9 verses

    A man with a stinging tongue, who disparages by insinuation, counts and recounts what he has: he "amasses goods and tallies them, thinking that his goods have made him eternal" (104:2-3).

    The answer falls without delay: "He will surely be cast away into the Crusher" (104:4). The one who listens is asked whether he knows what the Crusher is, and it is shown to him: "The fire of God, kindled, which rises up to the Consciences" (104:6-7), locked shut upon them in extended pillars.

    The goods he counts will not make him eternal, any more than they saved the father of the flame. What he holds back is lacking, beside him, to the orphan and the destitute.

    « thinking that his goods have made him eternal » 104:3

    « He will surely be cast away into the Crusher. » 104:4

    « The fire of God, kindled, which rises up to the Consciences. » 104:6

    ↓ After the one who thinks his goods eternal, the next sura declares every human being in loss, except those who enjoin one another to truth and to patience.

12. 103

    Except those who enjoin one another to truth

    3 verses

    A brief oath, "By the pressure!" (103:1), then a finding that targets everyone: "The human being is surely in loss" (103:2). The one who amasses as well as the one who has nothing.

    An exit is opened, in four gestures: believing, doing sound deeds, then two gestures that are not done alone, those who "enjoined one another to truth, and enjoined one another to patience" (103:3). For a weak and dispersed community, the way out is taken together.

    The mutual enjoining of patience will return further on, just after having fed an orphan or a destitute person on a day of famine.

    « The human being is surely in loss » 103:2

    « except those who have believed, done sound deeds » 103:3

    « enjoined one another to truth, and enjoined one another to patience. » 103:3

    ↓ Loss has a face in the next sura: rivalry in accumulation, all the way to the graves.

13. 102

    Until you visited the graves

    8 verses

    The text speaks face to face to those who accumulate: "Rivalry in accumulation has distracted you, until you visited the graves" (102:1-2). A whole life passes in this rivalry.

    Twice the same answer, "By no means! You will soon know" (102:3), then the regret of what they do not know. They will see the Blaze, then see it "with the eye of certainty" (102:7).

    The last shot is a question to come: they will be questioned, that Day, about the bliss. What they received, food and security, will be asked of them.

    « Rivalry in accumulation has distracted you, until you visited the graves. » 102:1

    « By no means! You will soon know. » 102:3

    « Then you will most surely be questioned, that Day, about the bliss. » 102:8

    ↓ They will see the Blaze; the next sura shows the day of the Crash, when the balances decide.

14. 101

    The day of the Crash

    11 verses

    A single word, the Crash, then two questions: "What is the Crash?" (101:2), and what will give you an idea of what the Crash is?

    The shot widens: "The Day when men will be like scattered moths" (101:4), and the mountains like carded wool. Those who amassed no longer hold anything.

    Then the balances. Heavy, a satisfying existence; light, the Abyss for abode. And what the Abyss is: "A scorching fire" (101:11).

    « What is the Crash? » 101:2

    « The Day when men will be like scattered moths » 101:4

    « As for the one whose balances are heavy, he will be in a satisfying existence. » 101:7

    ↓ The balances weigh; the next sura shows the ungrateful one, who does not know what will come out of the graves and the chests.

15. 100

    The ungrateful one

    11 verses

    A charge crosses the screen: those that cross the limits, panting, strike the spark through their clashes, "that launch the assault in the morning, stirring up the dust" (100:3-4), and plunge into the heart of a host. The violence of the raid is shown before the man.

    Then the camera settles on the man: "The human being is surely, toward his Guardian, rebelliously ungrateful" (100:6). He is himself a witness to that, and for the love of the good, he is vehement.

    A question brings him back to the Day: does he not know that when what is in the graves is upheaved, "and what is in the chests is drawn out" (100:10), his Guardian will be, that Day, Intimately Acquainted with them?

    « The human being is surely, toward his Guardian, rebelliously ungrateful » 100:6

    « for the love of the good he is surely vehement » 100:8

    « and what is in the chests is drawn out » 100:10

    ↓ What is buried will be drawn out; the next sura shows the earth that quakes and brings forth its loads.

16. 99

    The weight of a particle

    8 verses

    The earth quakes with its own quaking and brings forth its loads. A man looks and asks: "What is with it?" (99:3). That Day, it recounts its news, for its Guardian has inspired it.

    Men depart in scattered groups, "to be shown their deeds" (99:6). Nothing is too small: "whoever does the weight of a particle of good will see it" (99:7), and ill of the same weight, he will see it. What the orphan and the destitute did not receive on earth is weighed here to the particle.

    « What is with it? » 99:3

    « That Day, mankind will depart in scattered groups, to be shown their deeds. » 99:6

    « whoever does the weight of a particle of good will see it » 99:7

    ↓ Deeds are shown; the next sura tells what had been shown first: the Clear Proof.

17. 98

    The Clear Proof

    8 verses

    The story goes back to what came. Those who disowned, among the People of the Scripture and the associators, were not going to separate "until the Clear Proof came to them" (98:1): a messenger from God, reciting purified chronicles, containing upright writings.

    Those who had been given the Scripture became divided only after it came. What they were commanded fits in few words: to obey God, wholly turned toward Him, "and to maintain the Contact and give pure liberality" (98:5). These are the two gestures commanded to the messenger in 108, and emptied by the man of 107.

    Two outcomes: those who disowned, in the fire of Jahannam, the worst of those brought into existence; those who believed and did sound deeds, the best, in the Gardens of permanence. "God is satisfied with them, and they are satisfied with Him" (98:8).

    « until the Clear Proof came to them » 98:1

    « a messenger from God, reciting purified chronicles » 98:2

    « to maintain the Contact and give pure liberality » 98:5

    ↓ A messenger recites writings; the next sura tells the night in which what he recites was sent down.

18. 97

    The Night of Measure

    5 verses

    A night is set in the time of the film: "We indeed sent it down in the Night of Measure" (97:1). The one who listens is asked whether he knows what it is; it is "better than a thousand months" (97:3). A thousand is a whole life, the one that "would like to live a thousand years" (2:96); a thousand months is about a human lifetime: ten nights of counsel are worth more than a life.

    During this night descend the Agents and the Influx, by the permission of their Guardian, for every command. Then a single word qualifies it: "It is peace, until the emergence of dawn" (97:5). It is the only use of the word peace in the section, and it describes a night, not yet a peace between men. This night closes a span of ten: ten full nights of counsel, the first of the month of the sending down, "the month of refreshment, that in which this Recitation was sent down" (2:185). Until dawn, it is peace; at dawn, the counsel is fulfilled, as with the envoys who say "I advised you" (7:79).

    « We indeed sent it down in the Night of Measure. » 97:1

    « The Night of Measure is better than a thousand months. » 97:3

    « It is peace, until the emergence of dawn. » 97:5

    ↓ What was sent down must be read; right after comes the command "Read" (96:1), and with it the first threat.

19. 96

    Read, in the name of your Guardian

    19 verses

    The command falls right after the night: "Read, in the name of your Guardian who created!" (96:1). He created the human being from a clinging form. The command returns, "Read!", and his Guardian presents Himself: the Most Generous, who taught by the pen and taught the human being what he did not know.

    Then a warning: the human being exceeds all measure because he sees himself self-sufficient; it is to his Guardian that the return is.

    A scene of persecution follows: a man prevents another from making the Contact. "Have you seen the one who forbids an obedient one when he makes the Contact?" (96:9-10). Is he upon guidance? Does he deny and turn his back? Does he not know that God sees? The counsel is closed, the threat falls: "If he does not desist, We will surely seize him roughly by the forelock" (96:15). Until then, the text showed and warned; here, for the first time, God says "We" against a specific man: "Then let him call his assembly; We will call Our own" (96:17-18).

    The last word is for the obedient one who is prevented: "Do not defer to him, but prostrate and draw near" (96:19). He does not yield, he does not strike back: he prostrates.

    « Read, in the name of your Guardian who created! » 96:1

    « taught the human being what he did not know » 96:5

    « We will surely seize him roughly by the forelock » 96:15

    « Do not defer to him, but prostrate and draw near. » 96:19

    ↓ After the command to read, the next sura returns to the setting and to the human being: the fig, the olive, this secure land.

20. 95

    This secure land

    8 verses

    The setting is named by oaths: the fig and the olive, Mount Sinai, "And by this secure land!" (95:3). Trees, a mountain, a land: the place of the scene is set, and it is called secure.

    Then the human being: "We have certainly created the human being in the most beautiful of stature" (95:4), then brought back to the lowest of the low, except those who have believed and done sound deeds, theirs a reward never held over them.

    Two questions are put to him, to him: what causes you to deny the Due, after this? and "Is not God the most just of judges?" (95:8). In a land called secure where others are wronged, justice is first a question asked.

    « And by this secure land! » 95:3

    « We have certainly created the human being in the most beautiful of stature » 95:4

    « Is not God the most just of judges? » 95:8

    ↓ After the questions asked about the human being, the next sura asks the messenger three about what has been done for him.

21. 94

    The opened chest

    8 verses

    The camera is on him. Three questions say what has already been done: "Did We not open your chest for you?" (94:1). His burden, which weighed upon his back, is lifted; his remembrance is elevated. The one who was alone and burdened is lifted up.

    Twice the same rule, as if so that he would retain it: "Indeed, with hardship comes ease" (94:6).

    Then the command: "As soon as you are freed, direct your effort" (94:7), and to your Guardian turn your yearning. Rest does not last; a task awaits him.

    « Did We not open your chest for you? » 94:1

    « Indeed, with hardship comes ease. » 94:6

    « As soon as you are freed, direct your effort » 94:7

    ↓ Lifted up and unburdened, he learns in the next sura where he comes from: an orphan taken in, one astray guided, one indigent enriched.

22. 93

    Found an orphan, then taken in

    11 verses

    By the morning brightness, by the night when it grows still, he is told: "Your Guardian has not dismissed you, nor has He loathed you" (93:3). What comes after will be better for him than the beginning, and his Guardian will endow him, until he is satisfied.

    Then he is reminded of his own story, in three questions: "Did He not find you an orphan and take you in?" (93:6). Astray, then guided; indigent, then enriched. He therefore knows, from within, what an orphan without shelter and an indigent are.

    Hence three commands, which answer one by one to his past: "So as for the orphan, do not oppress him" (93:9); the seeker, do not rebuke him; the blessing of your Guardian, recount it. The orphan taken in must do the reverse of the one who roughly pushes away the orphan.

    « Did He not find you an orphan and take you in? » 93:6

    « So as for the orphan, do not oppress him. » 93:9

    « And as for the seeker, do not rebuke him. » 93:10

    ↓ He must give and not rebuke; the next sura shows the two ways, the one who gives and the one who holds back.

23. 92

    The one who gives, the one who holds back

    21 verses

    By the night when it covers all, by the day when it unveils itself, by what created the male and the female: "Your efforts are surely dispersed" (92:4). Men do not all go in the same direction.

    Two silhouettes. The one who endows, guards himself and declares true the most beautiful: his way will be eased toward ease. The one who is stingy, considers himself self-sufficient and denies the most beautiful: his way will be eased toward hardship, and "his goods will not avail him when he falls" (92:11).

    A fire that flares is announced; none will burn in it except the most wretched, who denied and turned his back. Kept at a distance from it will be "he who gives his goods to purify himself" (92:18), without repaying a blessing received, only to seek the direction of his Guardian, the Most High. And he will soon be satisfied.

    « We will ease him toward ease. » 92:7

    « We will ease him toward hardship. » 92:10

    « he who gives his goods to purify himself » 92:18

    ↓ The most wretched has a face in the next sura: the one of the Thamud who rises up against the she-camel.

24. 91

    The Self and the she-camel

    15 verses

    A series of oaths, from the sun to the earth, leads to the Self: proportioned, it has been inspired with "its depravity and its guardedness" (91:8). The choice is within it: "He has certainly succeeded who purifies it, and he has certainly failed who buries it" (91:9-10).

    Then an example, in the past, drawn from the neighboring ruins: the Thamud deny in their immoderation when the most wretched among them rises up. The messenger of God warns them: "The she-camel of God, and her watering!" (91:13).

    They deny him and hamstring the beast. Their Guardian pounds them for their offense and levels them, without fearing the outcome. One more ruin in the setting of the section.

    « inspired it with its depravity and its guardedness » 91:8

    « He has certainly succeeded who purifies it, and he has certainly failed who buries it. » 91:9

    « So their Guardian pounded them for their offense and leveled them. » 91:14

    ↓ The Thamud took the wrong way; the next sura, which swears by this land, shows the hard way to cross.

25. 90

    What makes one balk

    20 verses

    The place is named: "I swear by this land, and you are a resident in it" (90:1-2). The messenger lives in the scene; he is not passing through.

    A man there thinks himself out of reach and boasts: "I have annihilated goods in heaps!" (90:6). Does he think that no one has seen him? God assigned him two eyes, a tongue and two lips, and guided him along the two paths; but he has not plunged past what makes one balk.

    This hard passage is described in gestures: "It is having redeemed a pledge, or having fed, on a day of famine, an orphan near of kin, or a destitute person in privation" (90:13-16). Then believing, and enjoining one another to patience and to benevolence: those are the companions of the right side.

    Those who disowned the signs are the companions of the left side; over them, a fire locked shut.

    « I swear by this land, and you are a resident in it » 90:2

    « But he has not plunged past what makes one balk. » 90:11

    « having fed, on a day of famine, an orphan near of kin, or a destitute person in privation » 90:16

    ↓ Feeding the orphan is plunging past; the next sura reproaches the blessed for not honoring the orphan.

26. 89

    The dawn and the ten nights

    30 verses

    The time of the film is given by oaths: "By the dawn! By ten nights!" (89:1-2), by the mediation and the frustration, by the night when it ebbs away. The dawn is the one that closes the Night of Measure, "peace, until the emergence of dawn" (97:5); the ten nights are a span of counsel, as time is counted in blocks: "You remained no more than ten" (20:103). It is the first ten of the month of the sending down, and the oath swears by its two bounds.

    Then the review of the neighboring ruins, in the formula of 105: "Have you not seen how your Guardian dealt with the Aad" (89:6), Iram of the pillars, the Thamud who hewed through the rock in the valley, Fir'awn holder of the stakes. All had exceeded all measure and made corruption abound; the scourge of punishment fell upon them. The counsel is fulfilled; the threat is spoken in the present: "Surely, your Guardian is ever on the lookout" (89:14).

    Then the test, seen from within: the human being becomes a character, with his own words. Blessed, he says that his Guardian has honored him; restricted, that He has degraded him. By no means: "But rather, you do not honor the orphan, and you do not urge the feeding of the destitute" (89:17-18), you consume the inheritance with voracious greed, you love goods with immoderate love.

    The Day comes, and the method has changed. The Agents descended "for every command" (97:4) in a night that "is peace" (97:5); here, "the earth is flattened blow after blow", and your Guardian comes, "and the Agent, rank upon rank" (89:21-22), like the flattened mountain (7:143), like the rank of those who fight (61:4). These are the Our own announced in 96. Jahannam is brought, and the man regrets having sent nothing ahead for his life. Then, for the first time since 109, a call is uttered, and it no longer goes to a group but to one alone: "O reassured Self!" (89:27). The call is gentle: "Return to your Guardian, well-pleased and pleasing" (89:28).

    « Have you not seen how your Guardian dealt with the Aad » 89:6

    « Surely, your Guardian is ever on the lookout. » 89:14

    « But rather, you do not honor the orphan, and you do not urge the feeding of the destitute » 89:17

    « and your Guardian comes, and the Agent, rank upon rank » 89:22

    « O reassured Self! » 89:27

    ↓ The reassured Self enters the Garden; the next sura shows the two groups of faces, and the command to remind.

27. 88

    Remind, without compulsion

    26 verses

    "Has the discourse concerning the All-Covering reached you?" (88:1). Humble, exhausted faces burn in a scorching fire; their only food does not avail against hunger. Others, in bliss, are in a lofty garden where no idle talk is heard.

    The camera shows what each one can look at: the massive animals, the elevated sky, the mountains set up, the earth laid flat. "Do they not look at the massive animals, how they were created?" (88:17).

    Then the command, which sets the role of the messenger: "So remind; you are only one who reminds" (88:21). And its limit: "You have no power to compel them" (88:22). The return and the reckoning belong to God.

    « So remind; you are only one who reminds. » 88:21

    « You have no power to compel them. » 88:22

    « To Us is their resort, then upon Us is their reckoning. » 88:26

    ↓ "So remind"; the next sura takes up the command and gives it its measure: if the reminder should benefit.

28. 87

    Glorify the name of the Most High

    19 verses

    "Glorify the name of your Guardian, the Most High" (87:1), who created and proportioned, measured and guided, who brought forth the pasture and then made it dark wisps of straw.

    Two promises to the one who received the command to read: "We will make you read so you shall not forget" (87:6), except what God wills; and his way will be eased toward ease.

    Then the command, with its measure: "So remind, if the reminder should benefit" (87:9). He who dreads will remember; the most wretched will keep at a distance from it. He has succeeded who purifies himself, remembers the name of his Guardian and makes the Contact.

    The reproach is made to all: you prefer the near life, while the last life is better and more lasting. This is not new: it is in the former chronicles, those of Ibrahim and Moussa.

    « We will make you read so you shall not forget » 87:6

    « So remind, if the reminder should benefit. » 87:9

    « the chronicles of Ibrahim and Moussa » 87:19

    ↓ The Guardian who created and proportioned; the next sura asks the human being to look at what he was created from, and sets a preserver over every Self.

29. 86

    A preserver over every Self

    17 verses

    By the sky and the night comer, the star of piercing brightness: "There is no Self but has a preserver over it" (86:4). No one is left unguarded, not even the weakest.

    Let the human being look at what he was created from: a gushing water. The One who created him is capable of his return, on the Day when secrets will be tested, when he will have neither power nor help.

    It is a saying that separates, and no frivolity. Facing the adversaries, God speaks alone: "Indeed, they scheme a scheme, and I scheme a scheme" (86:15-16). The command to the messenger is to hasten nothing: "So grant a respite to those who disown, grant them a short respite" (86:17).

    « There is no Self but has a preserver over it. » 86:4

    « Indeed, they scheme a scheme, and I scheme a scheme. » 86:15

    « So grant a respite to those who disown, grant them a short respite. » 86:17

    ↓ Those who scheme are awaited; the next sura shows what they do to the believers, around a trench of fire.

30. 85

    The companions of the trench

    22 verses

    By the sky containing constellations, by the promised Day, by a witness and what is witnessed: "May the companions of the trench perish, of the fire richly fueled" (85:4-5). They sit around it and watch what they are doing to the believers.

    The only offense of the victims is stated: "And they resented them for nothing except that they believed in God" (85:8), the All-Powerful, the Praiseworthy. They have no recourse on earth; but God is witness over all things.

    Those who put to trial "the believing men and believing women" (85:10), and then did not repent, will have the punishment of Jahannam and that of the burning fire. Repentance remains open to them; those who have believed will have gardens beneath which rivers flow.

    The armies of Fir'awn and the Thamud are recalled; those who disown persist in denial, and God encompasses them from behind. The sura closes on what is recited: "a glorious Recitation, upon a Preserved Tablet" (85:21-22).

    « May the companions of the trench perish, of the fire richly fueled » 85:4

    « And they resented them for nothing except that they believed in God » 85:8

    « those who put to trial the believing men and believing women and then did not repent » 85:10

    ↓ Those who disown persist in denial; in the next sura, the Recitation is read to them and they do not prostrate.

31. 84

    The record in the hand

    25 verses

    The sky splits open, the earth is extended and empties itself; both listen to their Guardian. Then the call to each one: "O human being! You are indeed making your laborious way toward your Guardian, and you will meet Him" (84:6).

    Two scenes of return. The one who receives his record in his right hand is reckoned an easy reckoning and returns to his people elated. The one who receives it behind his back calls for his ruin: he had been elated among his people, and "He presumed he would never return" (84:14).

    You will embark upon state after state. A question targets those who listen without bending: "And when the Recitation is read to them, they do not prostrate?" (84:21). The command is to announce, not to compel: a painful punishment, except for those who have believed and done sound deeds.

    « You are indeed making your laborious way toward your Guardian, and you will meet Him. » 84:6

    « As for the one who is given his record in his right hand, he will be reckoned an easy reckoning » 84:7

    « He presumed he would never return. » 84:14

    ↓ The one who presumed he would never return; the next sura asks the defrauders whether they do not presume that they will be raised.

32. 83

    Woe to the defrauders

    36 verses

    A market scene: "Woe to the defrauders" (83:1). For themselves, they exact the full measure; for others, "when they measure or weigh for them, cause loss" (83:3). Do they not presume that they will be raised for an immense Day, when mankind will stand before the Guardian of all beings?

    The record of the depraved is in Sijjin, a numbered record. Those who deny the Due say of the signs that they are legends of the ancients; what they were earning has rusted their cores. That Day, they are veiled from their Guardian.

    The record of the virtuous is in 'Illiyyun. The virtuous, on adorned couches, look; the radiance of bliss is seen on their faces, and they are given drink from a sealed nectar.

    Then the scene turns over. Those who cut themselves off used to laugh at those who believed, winked at one another as they passed, and said: "These are surely astray" (83:32). Today, "those who believed are laughing at the disowners, upon adorned couches" (83:34).

    « Woe to the defrauders » 83:1

    « when they measure or weigh for them, cause loss » 83:3

    « So today those who believed are laughing at the disowners, upon adorned couches. » 83:34

    ↓ The mockers were not sent as preservers; the next sura says that there are, over each one, preservers who write.

33. 82

    What has deluded you?

    19 verses

    The sky is rent asunder, the heavenly bodies scatter, the seas gush forth, the graves are upheaved: "a Self will know what it has put forward and kept back" (82:5).

    Then a question face to face: "O human being! What has deluded you concerning your Guardian, the Generous" (82:6), who created you, proportioned you, balanced you? The answer: you deny the Due, while noble scribes, over you, know what you do.

    The virtuous are in bliss, the depraved in a Blaze from which they cannot be absent. That Day, there is neither support nor clan: "The Day no Self will possess a thing for another Self" (82:19).

    « O human being! What has deluded you concerning your Guardian, the Generous » 82:6

    « preservers, noble scribes, who know what you do » 82:10

    « The Day no Self will possess a thing for another Self. » 82:19

    ↓ A Self will know what it has put forward; in the next sura, after twelve "when", a Self will know what it has brought forward.

34. 81

    When the sun is wrapped up

    29 verses

    Twelve sentences open one after another like end-of-the-world shots: "When the sun is wrapped up" (81:1), the stars dispersed, the mountains set in motion, the kinsmen left untended, the wild beasts gathered, the seas set aboil.

    In the midst of this upheaval, the camera stops on a child: "and when the girl buried alive is asked for what offense she was killed" (81:8-9). She is not asked what she did, but for what offense she was killed. Then the chronicles deployed, the sky stripped away, the Blaze stoked, the Garden brought near; and a Self will know what it has brought forward.

    Then come the oaths, then the testimony about the one who transmits: it is the saying of a noble messenger, trustworthy, secure with the Holder of the Edifice. To those around him it is said: "And your companion is not deranged" (81:22). He saw him on the clear horizon, and he withholds nothing of what escapes the senses.

    It is not the saying of a banished Diverter: "It is only a reminder for all beings" (81:27), for whoever wills to stand straight.

    « and when the girl buried alive is asked for what offense she was killed » 81:9

    « a Self will know what it has brought forward. » 81:14

    « And your companion is not deranged. » 81:22

    ↓ "It is only a reminder"; the next sura shows this reminder owed first to the one who comes seeking it, a blind man.

35. 80

    He frowned

    42 verses

    A scene caught live: "He frowned and turned his back, because the blind man came to him" (80:1-2). Then the text turns to him: what gives you an idea? Perhaps he might purify himself, or remember.

    The reproach is precise: "As for him who considers himself self-sufficient, you go out to him" (80:5-6), while it is not upon you if he does not purify himself; and the one who comes to you hurrying, and who dreads, from him you are distracted. The weak one who seeks comes before the rich one who suffices to himself.

    It is a reminder, in honored and purified chronicles. Let the human being look at his food: the water poured, the earth split, the grain, the grapes, the olives, the date-palms, "as an enjoyment for you and your cattle" (80:32).

    When the Deafening Blast comes, the bonds come undone: "the Day a man will flee from his brother, and his mother and his father, and his consort and his sons" (80:34-36). Some faces are radiant, others veiled in dark dust.

    « He frowned and turned his back, because the blind man came to him. » 80:1

    « as for him who came to you hurrying, and he dreads, from him you are distracted » 80:8

    « the Day a man will flee from his brother » 80:34

    ↓ He owes the reminder first to the one who dreads; the next sura calls him the warner of whoever dreads the Hour.

36. 79

    Those who tear away

    46 verses

    Oaths by those who tear away, release, swim, race ahead and govern the affair; then the Day: a quaking, a second, trembling cores. They ask, incredulous: "Are we really to be brought back to our former state, once we have become decayed bones?" (79:10-11). A single rumbling blast, and there they are, standing.

    A story slips into the film: Moussa, called in the sanctified valley of Tuwa, receives the command: "Go to Fir'awn; he has exceeded all measure" (79:17). He must propose to him that he purify himself. Fir'awn denies, gathers his own and proclaims: "I am your master, the most high" (79:24). God seizes him as an example.

    The sky, the earth, the water, the pasture, the anchored mountains: enjoyment for you and your cattle. At the great Cataclysm, the one who exceeded all measure will have the Blaze for resort; the one who feared standing before his Guardian, the Garden.

    Their question is reported to him: when will the Hour drop anchor? The answer puts him in his place: its utmost boundary is with his Guardian, and "You are only the warner of whoever dreads it" (79:45). Like Moussa, he warns; he does not fix the Hour.

    « Go to Fir'awn; he has exceeded all measure » 79:17

    « I am your master, the most high. » 79:24

    « You are only the warner of whoever dreads it. » 79:45

    ↓ "They ask you about the Hour"; the next sura opens on people asking one another about the immense Information.

37. 78

    The immense Information

    40 verses · label عم

    Two letters, ʿAyn Mim, close the section. Then people "are asking one another about the immense Information" (78:2), over which they differ. Twice: they will know.

    The camera shows what each one has before his eyes: the spread-out earth, the mountains as stakes, the pairs, sleep, the night as a garment, the day for livelihood, the water that brings forth grain and gardens.

    Then the Day: "the Day of Separation is an appointed time" (78:17). The Horn is blown, and they come in crowds. The separation opened by "To you your Law" (109:6) is accomplished, and the crowds promised at the beginning of the section return at its end.

    Jahannam lies in wait for those who exceed all measure; those who guarded themselves have their triumph, a recompense well accounted. None speaks that Day without permission. A door remains open: let whoever wants take, toward his Guardian, a place of resort; otherwise, the one who disowns will say: "Oh, that I were earth!" (78:40).

    « They are asking one another about the immense Information » 78:2

    « the Day of Separation is an appointed time » 78:17

    « So whoever wants may take, toward his Guardian, a place of resort. » 78:39

    ↓ The Day of Separation, an appointed time, is the one for which, in the next sura, the messengers were adjourned.

Closing: ʿAyn Mim (78:1), then: "They are asking one another about the immense Information" (78:2).

← Summary frieze

1. 77

   Woe to the deniers

   50 verses

   The film opens on sendings: those sent forth in succession, scattering, deploying, separating, and addressing a reminder "as justification or as warning" (77:6). The promise falls: what is promised will surely befall. The stars are obliterated, the sky is cracked open, the mountains are blasted away, and the messengers receive their appointment: "For the Day of Separation" (77:13).

   Then the refrain enters the scene and never leaves it: "Woe, that Day, to the deniers!" (77:15). Between each return, a proof is set before them: the first ones annihilated and the last ones who will follow, the despised water they come from, placed in a secure and stable place, the earth that receives the living and the dead, the water that quenches thirst.

   The shot switches to the Day. They are ordered to go toward what they used to deny, toward a shadow of three branches that does not protect from the flame. They utter nothing, they are not permitted to excuse themselves, and the challenge is thrown at them: "if you have a scheme, then scheme against Me!" (77:39).

   In reverse shot, those who guarded themselves, amid shades and springs. Then back to those here: let them eat and enjoy themselves a little; when they are told to kneel, they do not kneel. The last question remains open: "In what discourse, after this one, will they then believe?" (77:50).

   « For the Day of Separation. » 77:13

   « Woe, that Day, to the deniers! » 77:15

   « In what discourse, after this one, will they then believe? » 77:50

   ↓ The last question asks in what discourse they will believe; the next sura shows those who believed and fed the destitute, then the Recitation descending upon him.

2. 76

   The cup of the virtuous

   31 verses

   A question rises before anything else: was there a time when the human being "was not a thing worth mentioning" (76:1)? Then he is created from a conjoined drop to be tested, made hearing and seeing, and guided along the way, "be he grateful or be he disowning" (76:3).

   The camera follows the virtuous. They are faithful to their vows, and one gesture defines them: "And they give food, despite their love for it, to the destitute, the orphan, and the captive" (76:8). They speak to those they feed: they want from them neither recompense nor gratitude, only the direction of God. This is the answer to the man who roughly pushes away the orphan and does not urge the feeding of the destitute.

   The Garden is shown to them in detail, for having been patient: the silk, the shades hanging close, the vessels of silver, the spring named Salsabil, the children made eternal who circulate among them, and "a great dominion" (76:20). Those who gave without return receive without measure.

   Then God turns to him: "It is We who have sent down to you the Recitation, a gradual sending down" (76:23). The order follows: to be patient with the judgment of his Guardian, to defer neither to the transgressor nor to the great disowner, to remember the name of his Guardian at dawn and at homecoming, to prostrate at night. Those opposite love the immediate life; this is a reminder, and let whoever wants take a way toward his Guardian.

   « And they give food, despite their love for it, to the destitute, the orphan, and the captive » 76:8

   « we want from you neither recompense nor gratitude. » 76:9

   « It is We who have sent down to you the Recitation, a gradual sending down. » 76:23

   ↓ He must be patient while the Recitation descends little by little; the next sura tells him not to move his tongue to hasten it.

3. 75

   Where to flee?

   40 verses

   Two oaths, by the Day of Appearance and by the self-censuring Self. Opposite, a man doubts that his bones will be gathered, wants to persist in depravity, and asks: "When will the Day of Appearance be?" (75:6). The answer comes in images: the sight blinded with glare, the moon eclipsed, the sun and the moon joined together, and the human being who says on that Day: "Where to flee?" (75:10). No bulwark.

   At the heart of the scene, the camera turns to the one who receives the text and catches him repeating too fast: "Do not move your tongue with it to hasten it" (75:16). Assembling the Recitation and having it recited is upon God; he must follow its recitation, and the explanation will come afterwards. Before warning, he learns to receive.

   Back to the man, at the moment of dying: when it reaches the collarbones, it is asked who will raise up, and the leg is intertwined with the leg. He neither declared true nor made the Contact; he denied, turned his back, then went to his people walking in vain pride. A drop of emitted semen, become a clinging form, shaped into male and female: is the One who did this not capable of giving life to the dead?

   « Do not move your tongue with it to hasten it » 75:16

   « for upon Us is its assembling and its recitation. » 75:17

   « Does the human being think that he will be left without purpose? » 75:36

   ↓ He has learned to receive the Recitation; the next sura orders him to arise and warn.

4. 74

   Arise and warn

   56 verses

   A man covered in a cloak is called out, and the mission order falls in brief sentences: "Arise and warn" (74:2), proclaim the greatness of your Guardian, purify your clothes, "and defilement, keep away from it" (74:5). He must not make much of what he gives, and for his Guardian he must be patient. The first keeping away is not a departure: he stands apart from what defiles. The same verb again speaks of an inner keeping away, not a departure.

   The trumpet announces a difficult day for the disowners. Then God points out a man and takes charge of him Himself: "Leave Me alone with the one I created" (74:11). He provided him with extensive goods and sons present with him, and the man covets more. He is seen reflecting, determining, frowning, turning his back, and delivering his verdict on the Recitation: it is only the saying of a human.

   Saqar is promised to him, which leaves nothing remaining; nineteen are over it. This number is a trial: it strengthens those who were given the Scripture and the believers, and makes those with sickness in their cores and the disowners say: what did God mean by this example? "And none knows the armies of your Guardian except Him" (74:31).

   In the gardens, the companions of the right ask the severed what led them into Saqar. The answer is the confession of a whole life: they did not make the Contact, "nor did we use to feed the destitute" (74:44), they immersed themselves with those who immersed themselves and denied the Day of the Due.

   The last image is of a herd in flight: they turn away from the reminder "as if they were terrified donkeys, fleeing from a lion" (74:50-51). Each would like to be given his own chronicles deployed. This is a reminder: let whoever wants remember it.

   « Arise and warn » 74:2

   « and defilement, keep away from it » 74:5

   « Leave Me alone with the one I created » 74:11

   ↓ He must arise to warn; the next sura orders him to stand at night to receive a heavy saying.

5. 73

   Standing at night

   20 verses

   A man wrapped up, the same order to rise, but at night: "Stand the night, except a little" (73:2), half of it, a little less or a little more, and recite the Recitation in measured, distinct recitation. The reason is given: "for We will cast upon you a heavy saying" (73:5). By day he has a long swim; the rising of the night is more upright in speech.

   He must take his Guardian as trustee, be patient with what they say, "and avoid them with gracious avoidance" (73:10). He does not strike back: God reserves for Himself the deniers who live in well-being, and he grants them a little respite. The separation begins here in attitude: one keeps away without leaving, and without violence; it will become a departure when the expulsion is real (60:10, 59:8-9), then a status in the law (8:72).

   The text turns to those who listen: a messenger has been sent to them, a witness upon them, as a messenger was sent to Fir'awn, who disobeyed him and was seized. How will they guard themselves against "a Day that will turn children gray-haired" (73:17)? This is a reminder.

   The last shot, a long one, shows a community that already exists: he stands nearly two-thirds of the night, "as do a group of those with you" (73:20). God knows they will not keep this count, and lightens it: let them read what is easy for them. He knows there will be among them the sick, others traveling through the land seeking the favor of God, "and others fighting in the way of God" (73:20). Fighting is still only a future, ranked among the burdens of the community to come; for now, the Contact, pure liberality and the beautiful loan.

   « for We will cast upon you a heavy saying. » 73:5

   « and avoid them with gracious avoidance. » 73:10

   « and others fighting in the way of God. » 73:20

   ↓ He has stood at night with a group; the next sura shows the obedient one of God standing up to invoke, and some of the Occulted listening.

6. 72

   He stood up to invoke

   28 verses

   "Say": it has been revealed to him that a group of the Occulted listened. It is they who speak, at length: "We have heard an astonishing recitation, that guides to rectitude" (72:1-2), and we have believed in it. They tell of their own turnaround: their Guardian has taken neither consort nor child, the foolish among them used to speak excessive words, and men took refuge in men among the Occulted, which only increased their crushing.

   They tell of the guarded sky: they used to sit there to listen, and now a blazing projectile lies in wait for whoever tries to listen. They do not know whether ill is intended for those on earth, or rectitude. They say they are divided "into scattered courses of conduct" (72:11), some true to God alone, others deviant; and they state that whoever believes fears neither loss nor crushing.

   Then the text stops on a scene: the places of prostration belong to God, and "when the obedient one of God stood up calling upon Him, they almost crowded him in dense multitude" (72:19). The order to rise, received in 74 and in 73, is fulfilled, and the crowd tightens around him.

   Several times "Say", and he says what he does not have: neither harm nor rectitude to give, and no shelter: "No one can grant me asylum from God" (72:22). He does not know whether what is promised is near. Only the transmission remains to him, under lookouts who verify that he has indeed transmitted.

   « We have heard an astonishing recitation, that guides to rectitude » 72:1

   « when the obedient one of God stood up calling upon Him » 72:19

   « No one can grant me asylum from God » 72:22

   ↓ He stood up and invoked; the next sura shows Nuh, who called his people night and day.

7. 71

   Nuh calls night and day

   28 verses

   One of old receives the same order as he: "Warn your people before there comes to them a painful punishment" (71:1). Nuh addresses his own: obey God, guard yourselves, defer to me, and you will be adjourned until an appointed term.

   Then he reports to his Guardian, as on a mission: "I have called my people night and day" (71:5), and the call has only increased their flight. They put their fingers in their ears and cover themselves with their clothes. He calls them openly, then publicly, then in secret.

   What he offered them was concrete: the sky in copious streams, goods and sons, gardens and rivers, and an earth made an expanse "that you may follow therein ways, wide passes" (71:20). But they followed the one whose goods and children increased him only in loss, and kept their deities, Wadd, Suwa', Yaghuth, Ya'uq and Nasr.

   They are drowned. Nuh's last prayer enfolds his own: "My Guardian, forgive me and my parents and whoever enters my house a believer" (71:28), and the believing men and believing women. His house is the only shelter of the story.

   « Warn your people before there comes to them a painful punishment. » 71:1

   « I have called my people night and day » 71:5

   « and whoever enters my house a believer » 71:28

   ↓ Nuh asks that punishment fall on the disowners; the next sura opens on a petitioner who asks for a punishment.

8. 70

   A Day far off and near

   44 verses

   Someone asks for a punishment for the disowners, a punishment none can repel. The answer comes from afar: the Agents and the Influx ascend to God in a Day of fifty thousand years. To the one who transmits, a single order: "So be patient, with a gracious patience" (70:5), for they see that Day as far off, and God sees it as near.

   The Day is shown: the sky like molten metal, the mountains like wool, and no warm friend asks after a warm friend. The severed one would like to ransom himself with his sons, his consort, his brother, "the line that took him in" (70:13), and everyone on earth. The one who amassed and locked away is called by the Flame.

   Then a reverse portrait, feature after feature. The human being is created anxious, and grudging when good touches him, except those who make the Contact, those in whose goods "there is a known right for the one who asks and the one who is deprived" (70:24-25), those who declare the Day true, preserve their chastity, are watchful over their trusts and their pact, and maintain their testimonies. Justice, here, is a share already owed to the deprived.

   Those who disown rush around him, on the right and on the left, in separate groups, each coveting the Garden. The order is to let them be until their Day, when they will emerge from the sepulchres "as if racing toward an erected marker" (70:43).

   « So be patient, with a gracious patience » 70:5

   « the line that took him in » 70:13

   « there is a known right for the one who asks and the one who is deprived » 70:25

   ↓ That Day they see as far off, the next sura names it: that which proves the real.

9. 69

   That which proves the real

   52 verses

   Three times the same name: that which proves the real. Then the ruins pass by: the Thamud and the Aad denied the Crash; the former are annihilated by the Immoderate, the latter by an icy wind, seven nights and eight days, lying "as if they were empty trunks of palm trees" (69:7). A question to the one watching: "Do you see any remnant of them?" (69:8). Fir'awn and the overturned cities follow, and the ark recalls that others were carried when the water overflowed.

   A single blast in the Horn, the earth and the mountains flattened with a single blow, and the Event occurs. Eight bear the Edifice: "On that day you will be exposed, and nothing about you will remain hidden" (69:18).

   The records are given. The one who receives his in his right hand holds it out to the others: "Here, read my record!" (69:19), and he is in a lofty garden. The one who receives his in his left hand would like never to have received it: his goods availed him nothing, his authority has been annihilated.

   The sentence describes him in two features: he did not believe in God, the Immense, "nor did he urge the feeding of the destitute" (69:34). The one who did not feed has there neither warm friend nor any food but a foul discharge.

   The last shot defends the one who transmits: it is the saying of a noble messenger, neither seductive orator nor soothsayer, a sending down from the Guardian of all beings. Had he fabricated some saying, he would have been seized. All that remains for him is to glorify the name of his Guardian, the Immense.

   « Do you see any remnant of them? » 69:8

   « He did not believe in God, the Immense, nor did he urge the feeding of the destitute. » 69:34

   « this is surely the saying of a noble messenger » 69:40

   ↓ He has been cleared of the suspicion of having fabricated; the next sura clears him of that of being deranged.

10. 68

    Nun, the pen, the garden

    52 verses · label ن

    A letter, Nun, closes the section, then an oath by the pen and what is inscribed in lines. The first word is for him: "You are not, by the blessing of your Guardian, deranged" (68:2); he has a reward never held over him, and an immense character. He and they will see clearly: the trial will tell who is the one put to trial.

    Two prohibitions follow: "So do not defer to the deniers" (68:8); they would like him to be complaisant so that they too may be complaisant. Then the portrait of the one to whom he must not yield: oath-monger, slanderer, hinderer of good, coarse, all this "because he has goods and sons" (68:14). To the signs recited, he answers: legends of the ancients.

    A parable in several shots. Owners swear to harvest their garden in the morning, without exception. At night, a round passes over it, and the garden becomes scorched land. In the morning, they set out talking to one another in undertones: "Let no destitute person enter it upon you today" (68:24). Arriving, they think they have gone astray, then understand that they are deprived; the most just among them recalls his warning, and they blame one another.

    The text questions the deniers: would those true to God alone be treated like the severed? Do they have a scripture in which they study, oaths from God, associates? On the day when a leg is bared, they will not be able to prostrate, they who were called to it while they were intact.

    God again reserves the deniers for Himself: "So leave Me with whoever denies this discourse" (68:44). He must be patient with the judgment of his Guardian, and not be like the companion of the fish, who called out while holding himself in.

    The last looks are those of the ones who want to trip him up: on hearing the Reminder, they say "He is surely deranged" (68:51). The section closes as it opened, on this suspicion and on its answer: "Yet it is nothing but a reminder for all beings" (68:52).

    « You are not, by the blessing of your Guardian, deranged. » 68:2

    « So do not defer to the deniers. » 68:8

    « Let no destitute person enter it upon you today. » 68:24

    ↓ The pen announces that they will see clearly who is the one put to trial; the next sura opens on the One who created death and life to test.

Closing: Nun (68:1), then: "By the pen and what they inscribe in lines!" (68:1).

← Summary frieze

1. 67

   Return your gaze

   30 verses

   The film opens on a single Master: "Blessed is He in whose hand is the dominion" (67:1). The question asked at the end of the previous section receives its answer: death and life were created to test "which of you acts best" (67:2).

   He is ordered to look: seven heavens one above another, no disharmony, "Return your gaze: do you see any fissure?" (67:3). Twice more, and the gaze returns breathless. The nearest heaven is adorned with lamps that are also missiles against the Diverters.

   Then Jahannam, roaring and almost splitting with fury. At each crowd thrown in, the custodians ask the same question: did no warner come to you? The confession follows: a warner came, and we denied. "If we had listened or reasoned, we would not be among the companions of the Inferno" (67:10). The previous section was that of the warning; here is what remains of it for those who denied it.

   God shows what holds each one's life: the earth made docile where one walks and eats, the birds held in the air by the All-Benevolent alone, the provision He can withhold. Who would be an army for them besides Him?

   The last shots are a series of "Say". They ask when the promise will be; he answers that the knowledge is with God and that he is only a clear warner. He considers his own loss and that of those with him: whether God annihilates them or has benevolence on them, who then will grant asylum to the disowners? The last word is an image of survival: "If your water were to sink into the ground, who then would bring you spring water?" (67:30).

   « Blessed is He in whose hand is the dominion » 67:1

   « to test you: which of you acts best. » 67:2

   « If we had listened or reasoned, we would not be among the companions of the Inferno. » 67:10

   ↓ He is only a clear warner; the next sura addresses him as Informant, at the heart of his own house.

2. 66

   Guard your Selves and your families

   12 verses

   The text enters the house: "O Informant! Why do you hold as prohibited what God has permitted you, seeking the approval of your wives?" (66:1). A release from his oaths is granted him. The power of God reaches even into the private life of the one who transmits.

   A scene of secrecy: he confides a discourse to one of his wives, she repeats it, God reveals it to him. She asks who informed him; he answers: the All-Knowing, the Intimately Acquainted. Then two of them are spoken to directly: if they support one another against him, God is his Ally, with Jibril, those who are sound among the believers, and the Agents. It may be that, if he repudiates them, his Guardian will give him better wives.

   The address widens to the believers: "Guard your Selves and your families from a Fire" (66:6), whose fuel will be men and stones. Responsibility is familial: each answers for his own. To the believers, a sincere turning back, and a light hurrying before them.

   Then the order to strive, which will return word for word in the account of the war of restoration: "O Informant! Strive against those who disown and the hypocrites, and be firm with them" (66:9).

   The last shot shows four women. The wife of Nuh and that of Lut, under two sound obedient ones, betray them: the marital bond does not save. The wife of Fir'awn, bound to the oppressor, asks for a house near God: "save me from Fir'awn and his doing, and save me from the wrongdoing people" (66:11). And Maryam, who protected her intimacy and declared true the words of her Guardian. Each answers for herself, as the wife of the father of the flame had her own fate.

   « Why do you hold as prohibited what God has permitted you » 66:1

   « Guard your Selves and your families from a Fire » 66:6

   « save me from Fir'awn and his doing, and save me from the wrongdoing people. » 66:11

   ↓ After the house of the Informant, the next sura gives the laws of all houses: repudiation, lodging, the child.

3. 65

   A way out for whoever guards himself

   12 verses

   "O Informant! When you repudiate women, repudiate them with regard to their prescribed waiting period, and enumerate that period" (65:1). The law begins with a count, and with a prohibition: "Do not make them leave their houses" (65:1), nor should they leave, unless there is a flagrant indecency. These are the limits of God, and none knows whether God will not bring about, after this, some matter.

   At the term, one keeps them or parts from them according to what is recognized, "and take as witnesses two just ones among you" (65:2). A promise accompanies each rule: to whoever guards himself, God grants a way out, and provides for him from where he does not expect.

   The waiting periods are specified: three months for those who no longer have menstruation or have not had it, and for the pregnant woman, until she gives birth. Then lodging: "Let them dwell where you yourselves dwell, according to your means" (65:6), without harming them to straiten them, and the maintenance of the pregnant woman until the birth.

   The child enters the law: if they take the child into care, they are given their rewards and one consults together according to what is recognized; in case of difficulty, another woman takes it into care. Each spends according to his ampleness, for "God imposes upon no Self except what He has given it" (65:7), and after hardship comes ease.

   The text recalls the cities that defied the command of their Guardian and tasted their loss, then turns to the possessors of intelligence: a Reminder has come down, a messenger who recites the signs "so as to bring those who have believed and done sound deeds out of the darknesses into the light" (65:11). Seven heavens, and of the earth their like: the command descends between them.

   « Do not make them leave their houses, » 65:1

   « Let them dwell where you yourselves dwell, according to your means, » 65:6

   « Then, if they take the child into care for you, give them their rewards » 65:6

   ↓ The law of the house ends on the command that descends; the next sura shows that, within the house itself, wives and children can be a trial.

4. 64

   The Day of Mutual Deception

   18 verses

   What is in the heavens and on the earth glorifies God: "To Him belongs the dominion, and to Him belongs the praise" (64:1). He created men, believers or disowners, and knows what they keep secret. The ancients who disowned used to say of their messengers: shall humans guide us?

   Those who disown claim they will never be raised. The "Say" answers with an oath. The Day is named: the Day of Reunion, "the Day of Mutual Deception" (64:9), when each discovers who has been deceived.

   The trial enters the house: "Among your wives and your children is an enemy to you" (64:14), let them beware of them. But the next order goes further: to overlook, to turn the page, to forgive. Goods and children are but a trial.

   The rule tightens into four verbs: guard oneself as much as one is able, listen, defer, spend. The beautiful loan made to God is doubled, and "whoever is protected from the greed of his Self" (64:16), those are the ones who succeed. The messenger, for his part, has only the clear transmission.

   « To Him belongs the dominion, and to Him belongs the praise, » 64:1

   « Among your wives and your children is an enemy to you » 64:14

   « Your goods and your children are but a trial, » 64:15

   ↓ Goods and children must not distract; the next sura shows hypocrites who want to cut off provisions from those who are with the messenger.

5. 63

   Propped-up pieces of wood

   11 verses

   Men come to him and testify: you are the messenger of God. God knows it, and testifies on His side that "the hypocrites are surely liars" (63:1). Their oaths are a shield, and they bar from the way of God. Seen, their silhouettes dazzle; heard, they are "like propped-up pieces of wood" (63:4), and every cry seems to them aimed against them.

   They are invited to come so that the messenger may ask forgiveness for them; they turn their heads aside. Then their plan is stated: "Do not spend on those who are with the messenger of God until they disperse" (63:7). The community is still fragile enough that one wants to disperse it through hunger.

   And their threat: "If we return to the Capital, the mightier will surely expel the more humiliated therefrom" (63:8). Expulsion, which the believers have suffered, remains the weapon brandished against them. The answer turns the sentence around: might belongs to God, to His messenger and to the believers.

   To the believers, an instruction: let their goods and their children not distract them from the remembrance of God, and let them spend before death comes and it is too late to ask for a delay.

   « they are like propped-up pieces of wood. » 63:4

   « Do not spend on those who are with the messenger of God until they disperse. » 63:7

   « If we return to the Capital, the mightier will surely expel the more humiliated therefrom. » 63:8

   ↓ They wanted the believers to disperse for lack of provisions; the next sura shows them dispersing of their own accord toward a trade.

6. 62

   Forsake selling

   11 verses

   The Sovereign, the Most Holy, has raised among the people without a prior Scripture "a messenger from among themselves, reciting to them His signs, purifying them, and teaching them the Scripture and wisdom" (62:2). They were before in manifest error; others have not yet joined them.

   In counterpoint, those who were entrusted with the Tawrah and did not carry it: the donkey carrying travel goods. To the Reoriented who claim to be the only allies of God, he must say: then wish for death. The death they flee will meet them.

   Then a rule for the community, with a day of its own: "When the call is made for the Contact, on this day of reunion, hurry to the remembrance of God and forsake selling" (62:9). Once the Contact is completed, let them spread through the land and seek the favor of God.

   The last shot shows the disorder: "But when they see a trade or a distraction, they disperse toward it and leave you standing" (62:11). The community receiving its rules does not yet keep them; he must tell them that what is with God is better.

   « a messenger from among themselves » 62:2

   « hurry to the remembrance of God and forsake selling. » 62:9

   « But when they see a trade or a distraction, they disperse toward it and leave you standing. » 62:11

   ↓ They leave him standing and go; the next sura asks them why they say what they do not do.

7. 61

   The trade that saves

   14 verses

   Everything glorifies God. Then a reproach, facing the believers: "Why do you say what you do not do?" (61:2). It is a great abomination. Opposite, an image of order: "Indeed, God loves those who fight in His way in ranks, as if they were a compact structure" (61:4). Fighting now exists, and what is expected of a scattered troop is the rank.

   Two of old speak to their people. Moussa: why do you trouble me, when you know that I am the messenger of God? Issa, son of Maryam, to the Sons of Israel: he confirms the Tawrah and announces a messenger to come after him, "whose attribute is: the most worthy of praise" (61:6). When the clear proofs are brought, they say: manifest illusion.

   Those who disown want to extinguish the light of God with their mouths, and God completes His light. He has sent His messenger with the guidance and the Law of truth, to make it prevail over every law.

   A trade is offered: to believe, and to strive in the way of God with one's goods and one's Self. Something they love is added: "help from God and a near opening" (61:13). The help and the opening, promised to the messenger alone at the beginning of the Book, are now announced to the community as near.

   Last call: to be the helpers of God, like the disciples of Issa. A group of the Sons of Israel believed, another disowned, and God fortified those who believed against their enemy: they became dominant.

   « Why do you say what you do not do? » 61:2

   « Indeed, God loves those who fight in His way in ranks, as if they were a compact structure. » 61:4

   « help from God and a near opening. » 61:13

   ↓ The believers must hold their rank before the enemy; the next sura opens on the prohibition of taking this enemy as an ally.

8. 60

   The fine paragon of Ibrahim

   13 verses

   The first word is a prohibition: "Do not take My enemy and your enemy as allies" (60:1). The reason is a fact: they have disowned the truth, and driven out the messenger and the believers because they believe in God. Some, however, confide their affection to them secretly. If they surprise them, they will be enemies, and neither kinship nor children will avail on the Day.

   A paragon is given: Ibrahim and those with him said to their people: "We are indeed quit of you and of what you obey besides God" (60:4). The line drawn in 109 becomes a conduct. Ibrahim alone keeps a word for his father, the asking of forgiveness, and the group prays: do not make us a trial for those who disown.

   The door is not closed: "It may be that God will place affection between you and those you have held as enemies among them" (60:7). The border is drawn with precision: God does not forbid being virtuous and equitable toward those who did not fight the believers concerning the Law and did not expel them from their abodes; only alliance with those who fought them, expelled them, or supported their expulsion, is forbidden.

   Then an arrival scene, where the verb to emigrate appears for the first time: "When believing women come to you as emigrants, examine them" (60:10). God knows their faith best; if they are believers, they are not sent back to the disowners. The bonds are undone on both sides, the husbands who stayed on the other side are given back what they spent, and the women may be married when given their rewards. This is the first regulated reception of refugee women. The verb that meant keeping away (73:10) now means a real departure: emigration begins with these believing women.

   The rule works both ways: if a wife leaves for the disowners, the one who lost her is compensated with the equivalent of what he had spent. The account is just, even between enemies.

   Finally believing women come to pledge allegiance to the Informant, on conditions that are a small law: to associate nothing with God, not steal, not commit fornication, "not kill their children" (60:12), not bring forth slander, not disobey in what is recognized. He accepts their pledge and asks God's forgiveness for them.

   « God does not forbid you from being virtuous and equitable toward those who did not fight you concerning the Law » 60:8

   « When believing women come to you as emigrants, examine them. » 60:10

   « It may be that God will place affection between you and those you have held as enemies among them, » 60:7

   ↓ The believers were expelled from their abodes; the next sura shows God expelling from their fortresses those who thought themselves safe.

9. 59

   The fortresses held nothing back

   24 verses

   After the glorification, the first act of power: "It is He who expelled from their abodes those who, among the People of the Scripture, disowned, in the first gathering" (59:2). No one expected it; they thought themselves protected by their fortresses. God comes from where they did not expect, hurls terror, and they dismantle their houses with their own hands and the hands of the believers.

   Exile is one penalty in place of another: "And had God not prescribed exile for them, He would have punished them in the near life" (59:3). The reason is given: they set themselves in breach against God and His messenger. The expulsion the believers suffered changes sides, and it is God who carries it out.

   Then the sharing. What God restored to the messenger, without horse or mount, goes to God, to the messenger, to relatives, orphans, the destitute and the passing traveler, "so that it does not rotate among the wealthy among you" (59:7). The first law of restored goods is a law for the weak.

   The emigrants enter the film: "For the poor emigrants who were expelled from their abodes and goods" (59:8), who seek favor from God and help His messenger. Opposite, those who had settled in the abode and in faith before them love them, and "prefer them over themselves, even if they themselves suffer privation" (59:9). Those who come after pray for their brothers and ask that no rancor remain in their cores.

   The hypocrites promise those who disowned to go out with them if they are expelled, to help them if they are fought; God testifies that they lie. Those opposite will fight only from behind walls: they are thought united, and their cores are divided. They are like the Diverter who tells the human being to disown, then declares himself quit of him.

   To the believers: let every Self consider what it has prepared for tomorrow. Had this Recitation descended upon a mountain, it would have split apart. The sura closes on the names of the One who has taken power: the Sovereign, the Most Holy, "the Peace, the Guarantor" (59:23), the All-Powerful.

   « It is He who expelled from their abodes those who, among the People of the Scripture, disowned, in the first gathering. » 59:2

   « so that it does not rotate among the wealthy among you. » 59:7

   « prefer them over themselves, even if they themselves suffer privation. » 59:9

   ↓ Those who come after ask that no rancor remain between believers; the next sura regulates their secret talks and their assemblies.

10. 58

    God has heard the one who argues

    22 verses

    The film opens on a woman speaking: "God has certainly heard the saying of the one who argues with you about her husband and complains to God" (58:1). She disputes with the messenger, and God hears their exchange. The law is born of a complaint.

    The answer abolishes a custom: those who present the back to their women make mothers of them, but "Their mothers are none but those who bore them" (58:2), and it is a disavowed saying and a falsification. Whoever repeats it must restore the independence of a pledge before touching his wife again; otherwise observe an abstinence of two consecutive months; otherwise feed sixty destitute people. The wrong done to a wife is repaired for the benefit of the weakest.

    Those who set themselves against God and His messenger are brought low, like those before. Then a scene of murmurs: "There is no secret talk among three but He is their fourth" (58:7). People to whom secret talk was forbidden start again against the messenger, and greet him with a greeting God never greeted him with.

    The rule follows: hold secret talk for virtue and guarding oneself, not for transgression. In assemblies, make room when asked, rise when asked. Before a talk with the messenger, advance charity; then the measure is lightened, and there remain the Contact and pure liberality. A still disorderly community learns to sit, to speak and to rise.

    The hypocrites return: they have allied themselves with a people with whom God is angry, take oaths upon falsehood, and their oaths are a shield. Neither their goods nor their children will avail them; the Diverter has made them forget the remembrance of God.

    Power is proclaimed as a writing of God: "I shall surely overcome, I and My messengers" (58:21). The last shot separates two parties: those who believe bear no affection for those who set themselves against God, even if they are their fathers, their sons or their brothers; God has inscribed faith in their cores, and "Those are the party of God" (58:22).

    « God has certainly heard the saying of the one who argues with you about her husband » 58:1

    « Their mothers are none but those who bore them. » 58:2

    « I shall surely overcome, I and My messengers. » 58:21

    ↓ God has written that He will overcome; the next sura shows His dominion over the heavens and the earth, and the balance sent down with iron.

11. 57

    A light that cannot be borrowed

    29 verses

    Everything glorifies God, and the dominion of the heavens and the earth is His, said twice. He is the First and the Last, the Apparent and the Hidden, established upon the Edifice, "And He is with you wherever you are" (57:4). For a scattered community, it is the first assurance.

    Then the call: to believe, and to spend "from that which He has made you trustees of" (57:7). Goods do not belong to the one who holds them. A distinction of time appears: "Not equal among you is the one who spent and fought before the opening" (57:10), and those after; to all, the finest is promised. The history of the community now has a before and an after.

    On the Day, the believing men and believing women walk, their light before them. The hypocrites, men and women, ask: "Wait for us that we may borrow from your light"; they are told to return behind them. A rampart with a gate rises: inside benevolence, outside punishment. They ask whether they were not with them; they were, but they bided their time and doubted.

    To the believers, a question: is it not time for their cores to become humble at the remembrance of God, before they harden like those before? The men and women who give charity and the beautiful loan will have double.

    The near life is shown as a season: play, adornment, mutual boasting, "rivalry in accumulation of goods and children" (57:20), like a vegetation that dazzles the sowers, then turns yellow and becomes debris. Every calamity is in a register, so that one does not grieve over what goes nor exult over what comes; God does not love the stingy who enjoin stinginess.

    Then the descent that makes this section a turning point: God has "sent down with them the Scripture and the balance that men may maintain equity" (57:25). With it, iron, severe rigor and benefits for mankind. Justice is no longer only the balance of the Day: it is set upon the earth, and strength is given to uphold it.

    The last shot follows the messengers in a line: Nuh, Ibrahim, Issa and the Injil, the kindness placed in the cores of those who followed him, and the instituted reverence they invented. To the believers, a double part of benevolence, and a light by which to walk.

    « spend from that which He has made you trustees of. » 57:7

    « Not equal among you is the one who spent and fought before the opening: » 57:10

    « sent down with them the Scripture and the balance that men may maintain equity. » 57:25

    ↓ The believers walk in their light toward the Day; the next sura tells of the Event, and the three categories it separates.

12. 56

    You will be three categories

    96 verses

    "When the Event occurs, none will be able to deny its coming" (56:1-2). It abases and elevates; the earth is rocked, the mountains crushed to powder and dust, and men become three categories: the companions of the right side, those of the left side, and the forerunners.

    The forerunners are those brought near, many among the first and few among the last. On woven couches, served by children made eternal, "They will hear therein no idle talk and no incitement to transgression" (56:25), only a saying, peace said twice.

    The companions of the right are among thornless lote trees, extended shade and flowing water. Those of the left are in a torrid wind and a shade of black smoke, and one feature designates them: "They were before that among the affluent" (56:45), persisting in the immense perjury and doubting that they will be raised.

    Then four questions, like four close-ups on what they hold in hand: what they emit, what they till, the water they drink, the fire they kindle. "Is it you who sow it, or are We the Sower?" (56:64). God could reduce the harvest to debris and make the water bitter.

    An oath by the positions of the stars: "surely, it is a noble Recitation, in a well-sheltered scripture" (56:77-78). Is it this discourse that they treat with complaisance, making their provision consist in denying?

    The last shot is a death agony: when it reaches the throat, the relatives look on, powerless, and God is nearer to the dying man than they are. According to his category, he receives rest, or "Peace to you" (56:91), or boiling water. All that remains is to glorify the name of his Guardian, the Immense.

    « When the Event occurs, none will be able to deny its coming. » 56:1

    « and you become three categories. » 56:7

    « surely, it is a noble Recitation, in a well-sheltered scripture » 56:77

    ↓ He must glorify the name of his Guardian, the Immense; the next sura opens on the All-Benevolent who taught the Recitation.

13. 55

    Which then of the blessings?

    78 verses

    "The All-Benevolent taught the Recitation" (55:1-2): the first gesture named is a teaching, before even the creation of the human being, whom He teaches clear expression. The sun and the moon follow their reckoning, the stemless plant and the tree bow down.

    Then the balance: the sky elevated, the balance set up, "maintain the weighing with equity and do not cause loss to the balance" (55:9). The balance is no longer only that of the Day: it becomes a rule for here. The earth is set down for the creatures, with its fruits and its grains.

    The refrain enters and never ceases: "Which then of your Guardian's blessings do you both deny?" (55:13). It addresses two audiences, the human of clay and the Occulted of flame, after each image: the two risings, the two seas separated by a barrier, the pearl and the coral, the vessels built up like landmarks. The denial of the previous section is set before each blessing.

    Everything on earth passes, only the direction of the Guardian remains. A challenge is thrown to the two assemblies: to bore through the confines of the heavens and the earth, which they will do only with an authority. The sky splits, rose-colored like tinted leather, and the severed are recognized by their marks.

    For whoever feared standing before his Guardian, two gardens, then two others beneath them: springs, fruits in pairs, beings untouched by anyone. In the middle, one sentence sums up the justice of the Day: "Is the recompense of good conduct anything but good conduct?" (55:60). The sura closes on the blessed name of the Guardian, holder of majesty and nobility.

    « The All-Benevolent taught the Recitation. » 55:2

    « maintain the weighing with equity and do not cause loss to the balance. » 55:9

    « Is the recompense of good conduct anything but good conduct? » 55:60

    ↓ The blessings are shown without respite; the next sura shows those who, seeing a sign, turn away and speak of illusion.

14. 54

    The Recitation made easy

    55 verses

    "The Hour has drawn near, and the moon has split" (54:1). They see a sign and speak of persistent illusion; they denied and followed their emotions. There came to them what should deter, but what use are warnings? He receives the order to turn his back on them, until the day the Caller calls and they emerge from the sepulchres like locusts.

    First account: the people of Nuh call their obedient one deranged. Nuh invokes: "I am overcome, so grant help" (54:10). The gates of the sky open, the earth gushes forth in springs, and he is carried on a vessel of planks and nails. Then the refrain: "We have indeed made the Recitation easy for remembrance" (54:17), and the question: is there then anyone to remember?

    The Aad under an icy wind, torn away like trunks of palm trees. The Thamud refuse to follow a mere human, one alone among them; the she-camel is sent to them as a trial, with a rule of sharing: "And inform them that the water is to be shared between them" (54:28). They call their companion, who hamstrings her, and a single cry mows them down.

    The people of Lut under a storm of stones, except the clan of Lut, saved in the last hours of the night; they had sought to turn him away from his guests. Then the clan of Fir'awn, seized for having denied all the signs. Five times the same mechanism: a warning, a denial, a seizure.

    The text turns to those here: would they be better, or do they have a quittance? They call themselves a united force able to help itself. The answer announces a battle: "The force will be defeated, and they will turn their backs" (54:45). Beyond, the Hour, more terrible and more bitter.

    Everything is created according to a measure, and all they have done is inscribed, the small as the great. Those who guard themselves are in gardens, "in a sitting-place of veracity, near a Sovereign, Capable" (54:55).

    « We have indeed made the Recitation easy for remembrance » 54:17

    « And inform them that the water is to be shared between them, » 54:28

    « The force will be defeated, and they will turn their backs. » 54:45

    ↓ The deniers called Nuh deranged; the next sura affirms that their companion has not strayed.

15. 53

    What he saw

    62 verses

    An oath by the star when it sets, then a defense: "your companion has not strayed, nor has he erred" (53:2). He does not speak from emotion; it is a revelation. One of intense strength taught it to him, on the highest horizon, then drew near to the distance of two bow-lengths, or nearer still.

    He saw him another time, near the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, "near which lies the Garden of Resort" (53:15). The sight did not swerve. To those who wrangle over what he sees, the scene answers with its precision.

    Then the idols are named and undone: Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, Manat. A question dismantles their sharing: "Would the male be for you, and for Him the female?" (53:21). That would be an unjust sharing. These names are only attributes, without authority; they follow presumption, and presumption avails nothing against the truth.

    He must turn away from the one who has wanted only the near life. God knows each one best, since the time they were embryos in their mothers' bellies: let them not declare themselves pure.

    A man has turned his back and given little. He is reminded of the chronicles of Moussa and Ibrahim: no one bears the burden of another, "and that the human being will have nothing but what he has endeavoured" (53:39). It is He who causes laughter and weeping, death and life, who annihilated the Aad, the Thamud, the people of Nuh, and the overturned city.

    "This is a warner among the warners of old" (53:56). The Imminent has drawn near, and they laugh without weeping. The last word is an order: to prostrate to God, and obey.

    « your companion has not strayed, nor has he erred » 53:2

    « Would the male be for you, and for Him the female? » 53:21

    « and that the human being will have nothing but what he has endeavoured » 53:39

    ↓ The order is to prostrate; the next sura swears by the Mount, by a written record and by the Frequented House.

16. 52

    Nothing can repel it

    49 verses

    Five oaths open the scene: the Mount, a written record on a deployed parchment, "By the Frequented House!" (52:4), the elevated roof, the sea set aboil. The House, from which the community is kept away, is here an oath of God. The punishment of his Guardian will befall, nothing can repel it.

    On the day the sky is shaken with violent turbulence, woe to the deniers who play in vain talk. They are driven toward the Fire: "This is the Fire you used to deny" (52:14). Is it an illusion, or do they not see clearly?

    Those who guard themselves are in gardens, and a family scene takes place there: "And those who believed, and whose descendants followed them in faith, We joined to them their descendants" (52:21), without curtailing anything of their works. They face one another and tell their stories: we were, among our own, filled with apprehension.

    Then he must remind: he is neither soothsayer nor deranged. A series of questions undoes each objection: a seductive orator for whom one awaits the blows of fate, an inventor, created from nothing, holders of the treasuries of God, of a ladder to listen, of what escapes the senses. One turns them against themselves: "Or would He have daughters, while you would have sons?" (52:39).

    The final order: to let them be until their day, and "be patient with the judgment of your Guardian, for you are under Our eyes" (52:48). Let him glorify his Guardian when he rises, during part of the night, and at the fading of the stars.

    « By the Frequented House! » 52:4

    « And those who believed, and whose descendants followed them in faith, We joined to them their descendants » 52:21

    « And be patient with the judgment of your Guardian, for you are under Our eyes. » 52:48

    ↓ He must be patient under the eyes of his Guardian; the next sura swears that what is promised is true, and tells of Ibrahim's guests.

17. 51

    So flee to God

    60 verses

    Oaths by those that winnow, bear, glide and distribute: "what you are promised is indeed true" (51:5), the Due will befall. Opposite, guessers plunged in a gulf ask when the Day will be.

    Those who guard themselves are described by their nights and their goods: they slept little, asked forgiveness in the last hours of the night, "And in their goods there was a right for the one who asks and the one who is deprived" (51:19). The signs are on the earth and in themselves; their provision is in the sky.

    Then a scene of hospitality: honored guests enter upon Ibrahim and say "Peace!", he answers "Peace" to people he does not recognize. He brings a fat calf, sees them not eat, takes fright. They give him good news of a knowledgeable boy, and his wife, old and barren, cries out and strikes her face.

    The guests are envoys, on their way to a severed people; those who believed are brought out of it, and only one house of those true to God alone is found there. Moussa is sent to Fir'awn, who calls him a worker of illusion or a deranged one, and he is cast into the deep with his armies. The Aad under the barren wind, the Thamud under the thunderbolt, the people of Nuh before them.

    The sky built, the earth spread out, every thing in pairs. Then the call of the messenger, which carries the word of flight: "So flee to God: I am indeed to you, from Him, a clear warner" (51:50). Those who are persecuted do not yet have a refuge on earth; their flight is toward God.

    He must turn his back on them without being censured, and remind, for the reminder benefits the believers. God created the Occulted and humans only so that they obey Him, and He does not want them to feed Him: "God is the Provider" (51:58).

    « And in their goods there was a right for the one who asks and the one who is deprived. » 51:19

    « So flee to God: I am indeed to you, from Him, a clear warner. » 51:50

    « I created the Occulted and humans only so that they obey Me. » 51:56

    ↓ The reminder benefits the believers; the next sura says whom he must remind by the Recitation: whoever fears the threat.

18. 50

    Closer than the jugular vein

    45 verses · label ق

    A letter, Qaf, closes the section, then an oath: "By the glorious Recitation!" (50:1). Those who disown marvel that a warner of their own has come to them, and object: when we are dead and become earth, "That return is far-fetched" (50:3). God answers that He knows what the earth diminishes of them, and that a record preserves everything.

    The sky without fissure, the earth spread out, the tall palm trees, and a blessed water: "And by it We brought a dead land back to life" (50:11). So will be the coming forth. Before them, the people of Nuh, the companions of ar-Rass, the Thamud, the Aad, Fir'awn, the brothers of Lut, the companions of the Thicket and the people of Tubba' denied.

    The camera comes as close as possible to the human being: God knows what his Self whispers to him, "and We are closer to him than the jugular vein" (50:16). Two receivers, on the right and on the left; not a saying without an observer, ready.

    Then the intoxication of death, the Horn, every Self with a driver and a witness. The veil is removed, the sight is sharp. The quarrel of the acolyte and the culprit is cut short by God: the threat had been set forth beforehand, and "I am in no way one to wrong the constrained under compulsion" (50:29). Jahannam asks for more, the Garden is brought near, and one enters it in peace.

    How many generations more formidable scoured the land without finding an escape. He must be patient with what they say, glorify his Guardian before the rising and the setting of the sun and during part of the night, and listen for the Cry of the Day of the coming forth. The last word fixes his place: "you are not a tyrant over them" (50:45); let him then remind, by the Recitation, whoever fears the threat.

    « That return is far-fetched. » 50:3

    « and We are closer to him than the jugular vein. » 50:16

    « and you are not a tyrant over them. » 50:45

    ↓ No saying is uttered without an observer; the next sura regulates the believers' speech before the Informant.

Closing: Qaf (50:1), then: "By the glorious Recitation!" (50:1).

← Summary frieze

1. 49

   The believers are but brothers

   18 verses

   The film opens at the messenger's, among his own. The orders fall upon those who have believed: not to put themselves forward before God and His messenger, and "Do not elevate your voices above the voice of the Informant" (49:2), lest works collapse without their sensing it. Outside, people shout his name: "Those who call out to you from behind the chambers, most of them do not reason" (49:4); it would have been better to wait patiently until he came out to them.

   A rumor arrives, carried by an overstepper. The order is to verify before acting: "distinguish clearly, lest you set upon a people out of ignorance" (49:6). The messenger is among them, and if he deferred to them in many matters, they would be overwhelmed.

   Then two groups of believers take up arms: "And if two groups of believers fight each other, reconcile between them" (49:9). If one of them commits iniquity, it is fought until it returns to God's order, then reconciliation is made "with justice". The reason fits in one sentence: "The believers are but brothers; so reconcile between your two brothers" (49:10). Then come the rules of common life: let no people mock a people, nor women women; no nicknames, no spying, no backbiting, that flesh of the dead brother that no one would want to eat.

   The shot widens to all mankind: "We created you male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may recognize one another" (49:13), and the noblest is the one who best guards himself. Notables say they have believed; he must answer them that faith "has not yet entered your cores" (49:14), and that it is God who graces them by having guided them.

   « The believers are but brothers; so reconcile between your two brothers. » 49:10

   « distinguish clearly, lest you set upon a people out of ignorance » 49:6

   « made you into nations and tribes, so that you may recognize one another. » 49:13

   ↓ The community has its rules; the next sura tells of the opening, and of those who stayed behind.

2. 48

   A manifest opening

   29 verses

   God speaks to the messenger face to face: "We have indeed opened for you a manifest opening" (48:1). What the short sura promised in one sentence, "When the help of God comes, and the opening" (110:1), the film now shows. Tranquility comes down into the cores of the believers, "And to God belong the armies of the heavens and the earth" (48:4).

   He is sent "as a witness, a bearer of good tidings, and a warner" (48:8). Men pledge allegiance to him, and the text says what this gesture is worth: "The hand of God is above their hands" (48:10). Whoever breaks the pact breaks it only to his own detriment.

   Then those who did not come. He is told their words before they say them: "Our goods and our families kept us occupied; so ask forgiveness for us" (48:11). They thought that the messenger and the believers would never return to their families. When the spoils come, they will want to follow; he must answer "You will never follow us" and announce to them another call, toward a people "of severe rigor" (48:16): the Romans, whose victory over the believers sura 30 will tell. The blind, the lame and the sick are exempted: "There is no discomfort for the blind" (48:17).

   Back beneath a tree: "God was indeed satisfied with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you beneath the tree" (48:18). He sends down tranquility upon them, promises them a near opening and spoils, and holds back the hands of people from them. Had those who disown fought, they would have turned their backs: "Such is God's norm, already past before" (48:23).

   Then the place becomes precise. The two camps are face to face, and nothing breaks out: "It is He who held back their hands from you, and your hands from them, in the midst of the tumult" (48:24). It is they who "barred you from the inviolable place of prostration" (48:25), and the offering does not reach its place. The reason for the restraint is given: there live "believing men and believing women whom you did not know, whom you might have trampled underfoot" (48:25). The House set "for mankind equally" (22:25) is closed, and the hidden weak are spared first.

   Opposite, the zeal of the age of ignorance; upon the messenger and the believers, tranquility and the word of guarding oneself. Then the vision is confirmed: "you will surely enter the inviolable place of prostration, if God wills, in security" (48:27), heads shaved or hair cut short, "without fear". The last shot shows those who are with the messenger, "severe toward those who disown, benevolent among themselves" (48:29), kneeling, prostrating, like a seed that puts forth its shoot and stands straight on its stem. This is the promise; the text does not film the entry, but it shows its aftermath in sura 9: the proclamation made on the spot "on the Great Day of the Hajj" (9:3), and the inviolable place of prostration forbidden to the associators "after this year of theirs" (9:28).

   « We have indeed opened for you a manifest opening » 48:1

   « It is He who held back their hands from you, and your hands from them, in the midst of the tumult » 48:24

   « you will surely enter the inviolable place of prostration, if God wills, in security » 48:27

   ↓ The hands were held back in the midst of the tumult; the next sura gives the rule of the armed encounter and names the city that expelled him.

3. 47

   The city that expelled you

   38 verses

   Two camps are set from the very first shot: those who disown and "bar from the way of God" (47:1), whose works go astray, and those who believe, whose condition is made sound. It is the same gesture that closed access to the inviolable place.

   Then the rule of the encounter: "So when you meet those who disown, multiply the pledges" (47:4); once the enemy is subdued, the bonds, then "either grace, or exchange of captives, until the war lays down its burdens" (47:4). The war has a planned end, and the captive a way out. God could have helped Himself; He tries some by means of others: "If you help God, He will help you and make firm your steps" (47:7).

   A sentence is addressed to the messenger alone, and says where he comes from: "And how many a city superior in strength to your city which expelled you have We annihilated" (47:13). He is an expelled man; his city is one town among others, a qarya, not the Capital, and it is not the strongest of those that have fallen; further on, the same forced departure will be told from the cave, "when those who disowned expelled him, the second of two" (9:40). The promised Garden has rivers of water, of milk, of wine and of honey; opposite, boiling water.

   At his place, some listen to him and then, barely out, ask those who were given knowledge: "What did he say just now?" (47:16). He receives the order to know that there is no deity but God and to ask forgiveness "for your offense and for the believing men and believing women" (47:19). Believers ask for a sura; when it comes down and combat is mentioned in it, he sees the looks of dying men. "Do they not then ponder the Recitation, or are there locks upon their cores?" (47:24).

   Whoever turns his back will spread corruption and sever his kinship. God will try in order to distinguish those who strive and those who are patient. To the believers who now have the upper hand, an instruction: the call to peace must not come from themselves, out of weakness, "So do not slacken and do not call for peace, while you are the most exalted" (47:35). Finally they are called to spend; the miser is miserly only toward himself, "And God is the Self-Sufficient" (47:38), and if they turn their backs, another people will replace them.

   « either grace, or exchange of captives, until the war lays down its burdens. » 47:4

   « your city which expelled you » 47:13

   « Do they not then ponder the Recitation, or are there locks upon their cores? » 47:24

   ↓ He must remember the annihilated cities; the next sura has him recall the brother of the Aad, of whom only the dwellings remain.

4. 46

   Occulted ones fall silent

   35 verses · label حم

   Ḥa Mim, then the opening that will return in the following suras: "The descent of the Scripture comes from God, the All-Powerful, the Wise" (46:2). He must challenge those who invoke others than God: let them show what they have created of the earth, or bring "a Scripture prior to this one, or a remnant of knowledge" (46:4). He is accused of having invented everything; he answers: "I am not a novelty among the messengers" (46:9), I only follow what is revealed to me.

   A witness from the Sons of Israel has borne witness and believed; those who disown say to the believers: "If it were good, they would not have preceded us to it" (46:11). Before this Scripture, that of Moussa; this one confirms it, to warn those who have done wrong.

   Then a family scene. "His mother carried him in pain and bore him in pain" (46:15); gestation and weaning last thirty months. At forty, the son prays for himself, for his parents and for his descendants. Another son rebuffs his own, "Fie on you both!" (46:17), while his father and mother call on God for rescue and beg him to believe.

   He is told: "And remember the brother of the Aad, when he warned his people at the Ahqaf" (46:21). They challenge him to bring the punishment. A cloud advances toward their valleys: "This is a cloud bringing us rain" (46:24). It is a wind that destroys everything, and in the morning nothing remains but their dwellings. The cities around those who listen were also annihilated.

   The last account is the calmest. Occulted ones are directed toward him; they listen to the Recitation and say to one another: "Be silent" (46:29). Then they go back to their people as warners: "we have heard a Scripture sent down after Moussa" (46:30). The last order is for him: "So be patient, as the resolute among the messengers were patient, and do not hasten" (46:35).

   « I am not a novelty among the messengers » 46:9

   « His mother carried him in pain and bore him in pain. » 46:15

   « Be silent. » 46:29

   ↓ The Occulted speak of a Scripture sent down after Moussa; the next sura tells of the Scripture given to the Sons of Israel, then of the way on which he is placed.

5. 45

   Every community on its knees

   37 verses · label حم

   Ḥa Mim, and the same opening as sura 46. Then the signs file past: the heavens and the earth, creation, the beasts spread about, the night and the day, the water that brings the earth back to life, the winds. "Those are the signs of God, which We recite to you in truth" (45:6). Woe to the one who hears them and persists in pride.

   God has subjected the sea, and all that is in the heavens and on the earth. Then an order of conduct, for a community that does not yet have strength: "Tell those who believe to forgive those who do not hope for the days of God" (45:14). The Sons of Israel received the Scripture and judgment, and differed only "out of iniquity among themselves" (45:17). Then comes his turn: "Then We placed you upon a legislated way from the Command, so follow it" (45:18).

   He is shown a man: "Have you seen the one who has taken his emotion as his deity?" (45:23). Others say that nothing annihilates them but time, and their only argument before the signs is: "Bring back our forefathers, if you are veracious" (45:25).

   Then the Day, seen with his own eyes: "And you will see every community on its knees" (45:28), each called to its record, which pronounces the whole truth. Those who have believed enter His benevolence; to the others it is said: "Today We forget you, as you forgot the meeting of this your day" (45:34). Praise closes the sura.

   « Tell those who believe to forgive those who do not hope for the days of God » 45:14

   « Then We placed you upon a legislated way from the Command » 45:18

   « And you will see every community on its knees » 45:28

   ↓ "Bring back our forefathers, if you are veracious"; the next sura puts this challenge back, word for word, in the mouths of the deniers.

6. 44

   Watch for the day of the smoke

   59 verses · label حم

   Ḥa Mim, and an oath by the clear Scripture: "We indeed sent it down in a blessed night" (44:3), the one the short sura called "the Night of Measure" (97:1). In it, every affair of wisdom is decided. But they, in doubt, play.

   The order is given to him: "So watch for the day when the sky brings a clear smoke that covers mankind" (44:10). Their supplication can already be heard, then the verdict: a clear messenger came to them, and they said "One taught, deranged" (44:14). God announces a respite to them, and its end: "but you will indeed relapse" (44:15).

   A parallel account: the people of Fir'awn. A noble messenger asks them: "Hand over to me the obedient ones of God" (44:18), and takes refuge in his Guardian against those who want to banish him. He calls, and the answer comes: "Set out with My obedient ones by night; you will be pursued" (44:23). An oppressed people is set on the road by night, and the sea stays still behind it.

   The drowning is not shown; the camera stays on what they left behind: "How many gardens and springs they left behind" (44:25), crops, noble stations. Another people inherits them, and "Neither the sky nor the earth wept over them" (44:29). The Sons of Israel are saved "from the degrading punishment, from Fir'awn" (44:30).

   The deniers take up the challenge again: "Bring back our forefathers, if you are veracious" (44:36). The heavens and the earth were not created in play, and "The Day of Separation is indeed the appointed time for them all" (44:40). The tree of Zaqqoum boils in the bellies; those who guard themselves are "in a secure place" (44:51).

   The last word comes back to him: "We have made it easy on your tongue only in the hope that they will remember" (44:58). Then an order to wait, which closes the mission: "So watch" (44:59), for they too are watching.

   « We indeed sent it down in a blessed night » 44:3

   « Set out with My obedient ones by night; you will be pursued » 44:23

   « We have made it easy on your tongue only in the hope that they will remember. » 44:58

   ↓ "but you will indeed relapse"; the next sura shows the people of Fir'awn, relieved of the punishment, going back on their word.

7. 43

   In the footsteps of the ancestors

   89 verses · label حم

   Ḥa Mim, and the oath by the clear Scripture: "We have indeed made it a flawless Recitation, perhaps you will reason" (43:3). It is, in the Matrix of the Scripture, exalted, wise. God asks whether He will cease to multiply for them the pages of the Reminder because they are excessive; the first ones mocked every informant, and they were annihilated.

   They know who created the heavens and the earth. God shows them the earth made ready, the water sent down in measure, the pairs, the mounts, and the words to say once established upon them: "Glory be to the One who has subjected this to us" (43:13).

   Yet they ascribe daughters to Him and reserve the sons for themselves. When one of them receives the news of a daughter, "his face stays darkened, and he is filled with suppressed distress" (43:17). They make the Agents female beings: did they witness their creation? Their only reason: "We indeed found our ancestors upon a way, and it is in their footsteps that we let ourselves be guided" (43:22).

   Before him, every warner heard the same sentence from the opulent of his city, and answered: "Even if I brought you what guides better" (43:24). Ibrahim, for his part, breaks with his father and his people: "I am indeed quit of what you obey, except Him who originated me" (43:26), and he makes it a lasting word among his descendants.

   They would like the Recitation to have been sent down "upon an important man from one of the two cities" (43:31). Is it they who apportion the benevolence? God has apportioned the means of livelihood; roofs of silver, stairways and gilding are only the enjoyment of the near life. Whoever turns away from the Reminder receives a Diverter as acolyte, and on the Day he would wish between them "the distance of the two risings" (43:38).

   Then he is spoken to face to face: "Is it you who will make the deaf hear" (43:40), or guide the blind? Whether he is taken away or sees the promise, the order is the same: "So hold fast to what has been revealed to you" (43:43). Let him ask the messengers before him.

   Moussa enters the scene before Fir'awn and his court. They laugh at the signs, are seized by the punishment, ask for his invocation, then, once relieved, go back on their word: this is the relapse announced just before. Fir'awn calls out to his people, "does not the dominion of Misr belong to me" (43:51), and despises the one who can hardly express himself clearly. "He made his people light, and they deferred to him" (43:54); all are drowned.

   When the son of Maryam is multiplied as an example, "your people held back from it" (43:57). He is only an obedient one whom God has blessed, an example for the Sons of Israel. Issa comes with the clear proofs and says: "God is my Guardian and your Guardian; so obey Him" (43:64); then the parties differ among themselves.

   The Hour will come unexpectedly: that day, close friends will be enemies, except those who guard themselves, invited into the Garden with their spouses. The severed call out to the Possessor, who answers: "You are indeed to remain" (43:77). The sura closes on the complaint of the messenger, "these are indeed a people who do not believe" (43:88), and on the answer: "So turn the page on them" (43:89), and say "Peace!". They will soon know.

   « We indeed found our ancestors upon a way, and it is in their footsteps that we let ourselves be guided. » 43:22

   « So hold fast to what has been revealed to you » 43:43

   « So turn the page on them, and say: "Peace!" » 43:89

   ↓ After Issa, the parties differ; the next sura tells of the Law enjoined upon Nuh, Ibrahim, Moussa and Issa: do not become divided.

8. 42

   Uphold the Law

   53 verses · label حم عسق

   Ḥa Mim, then, on a line of its own, ʿAyn Sin Qaf. God reveals to him "as He did to those before you" (42:3). The heavens are nearly rent asunder, while the Agents glorify "and ask forgiveness for whoever is on the earth" (42:5). He is the keeper of no one: "and you are not for them a trustee" (42:6).

   His mission has a place, "that you may warn the metropolis of cities and those around it" (42:7): the chief town of the region, Madyan, with the cities around it, and a Day, that of the Reunion, with a fraction in the Garden and a fraction in the Blaze. God could have made a single community; "And whatever you differ about, its judgment rests with God" (42:10).

   Then the central order of the section: the Law instituted for them is that of Nuh, Ibrahim, Moussa and Issa, "Uphold the Law, and do not become divided within it" (42:13). His call weighs upon the associators. Those who received the Scripture divided only after knowledge had come, "out of iniquity among themselves" (42:14).

   Hence the order he receives: "call and stand straight as you have been commanded" (42:15), do not follow their emotions, and say: "I have been commanded to be just between you" (42:15). There is no argument between them and him: to each his works, and God will gather them. It is God who has sent down the Scripture, "and the balance" (42:17).

   He is made to say that he asks no reward, "other than affection in closeness" (42:23). If God extended provision to all, they would commit iniquity; He sends it down in measure, and it is He "who sends down the saving rain after they have lost heart" (42:28). Misfortune comes from what hands have earned, and the vessels becalmed on the sea are a sign.

   Then the portrait of the community, trait by trait: those who forgive in anger, who maintain the Contact, who "conduct their affairs by conferring among themselves" (42:38), who spend, and those who, "when iniquity strikes them, help themselves" (42:39). A persecuted community receives here its first right.

   The rule is laid down with its measure: "And the recompense of an evil is an evil equal to it" (42:40); but whoever pardons and reconciles has his reward with God. Against the oppressed who defends himself, there is no way: "The way is open only against those who wrong men and commit iniquity on the earth without right" (42:42). Patience and forgiveness belong to resolve.

   He will see the wrongdoers before the punishment, asking for a way to be sent back, with furtive glances. The call goes out: "Answer your Guardian before there comes, from God, a day that cannot be turned back" (42:47); if they turn away, "only the transmission is incumbent upon you" (42:48).

   To God belongs the dominion: "He bestows, on whom He wills, daughters, and He bestows, on whom He wills, sons" (42:49), or He renders barren. God speaks to a human only by revelation, from behind a veil or through a messenger. Thus an Influx has been revealed to him: "you had no idea what the Scripture was, nor faith" (42:52), and it is he now who guides toward the path of God.

   « Uphold the Law, and do not become divided within it. » 42:13

   « I have been commanded to be just between you. » 42:15

   « And the recompense of an evil is an evil equal to it » 42:40

   ↓ His call weighs upon the associators; in the next sura, they answer him that between them and him there is a veil.

9. 41

   Between us and you, a veil

   54 verses · label حم

   Ḥa Mim, and a descent: "a Scripture whose signs are detailed" (41:3), bearing good tidings and warning. Most turn away. They say to his face: "Our cores are under coverings against what you call us to" (41:5), a deafness in the ears, a veil between them and him. He answers: "I am only a human like you" (41:6); your deity is one, stand straight toward Him.

   He tells them of creation: the earth in two days, its anchors, its rations determined "equally for those who ask" (41:10); then the sky, which was smoke, and the order to both: "Come, both of you, willingly or unwillingly" (41:11). They come submissively. Seven heavens, and the nearest heaven adorned with lamps.

   If they turn away, he warns them of a thunderbolt like that of the Aad and the Thamud. The Aad grew proud "on the earth without right" (41:15) and said: "Who is superior to us in strength?" (41:15). An icy wind blows upon them. The Thamud loved blindness more than guidance; the thunderbolt seizes them, and those who believed are saved.

   The Day: the enemies of God are led in columns toward the Fire, and their own bodies bear witness. They ask their skins: "Why did you testify against us?" (41:21), and these answer that God made them speak. During the recitation, they used to say: "Do not listen to this Recitation, and talk idly over it" (41:26).

   Upon those who say "Our Guardian is God", then stand straight, the Agents descend: "Do not fear and do not grieve" (41:30), we are your allies. Then a rule for whoever lives amid hostility: "Repel with what is more beautiful; then the one between you and whom there was hostility will be like a warm friend" (41:34). Only those who are patient receive it.

   Among His signs, the night and the day, the sun and the moon; let no one prostrate before them, but before God. The humbled earth quivers under the water: "He who brought it back to life is surely the One who brings the dead back to life" (41:39). The Scripture is impregnable, and "Nothing is said to you except what was already said to the messengers before you" (41:43).

   The human being does not tire of calling for good; touched by evil, he despairs; blessed, he says that everything is his by right. The sura closes on a promise: "We will show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves" (41:53), until the truth becomes clear to them.

   « Our cores are under coverings against what you call us to » 41:5

   « equally for those who ask » 41:10

   « Repel with what is more beautiful; then the one between you and whom there was hostility will be like a warm friend. » 41:34

   ↓ The Agents descend upon whoever says "Our Guardian is God"; the next sura shows a man whom they want to kill for these same words.

10. 40

    The man who withheld his faith

    85 verses · label حم

    Ḥa Mim, and the descent of the Scripture, from the One "who forgives offense and accepts repentance" (40:3). Only those who disown argue about His signs; let him not be deluded by "their movements through the lands" (40:4). Every community has sought to seize its messenger.

    The camera rises toward the Edifice. Those who bear it and those around it pray for the believers: "Our Guardian, admit them into the Gardens of permanence that You have promised them" (40:8), with those who were sound among their parents, their spouses and their descendants. Below, those who disown will ask: "is there then any way out?" (40:11).

    He hears the order to call upon God devoting the Law to Him, and the announcement of the Day of Meeting. A question is put to the whole scene: "To whom belongs the dominion today?" (40:16), and the answer: "To God, the One, the Subjugator" (40:16). That day, "no wrong today" (40:17).

    Then the account: Moussa is sent to Fir'awn, Haman and Qaroon. When he brings the truth, the order falls: "Kill the sons of those who believed with him, and violate the modesty of their women" (40:25). Fir'awn wants to kill Moussa and presents himself as the guardian of order: he fears that he may "uncover corruption in the land" (40:26). Moussa takes refuge in his Guardian.

    Then a man rises in the court: "And a believing man from the clan of Fir'awn, who withheld his faith, said" (40:28): will you kill a man because he says "My Guardian is God"? He speaks to the powerful in their own language: "the dominion is yours today, you are dominant in the land; but who will help us against God's rigor if it comes upon us?" (40:29).

    He recalls the parties, Nuh, the Aad, the Thamud, and Youssof, about whom they doubted until his death. Fir'awn asks Haman for a belvedere to glimpse the deity of Moussa. The man goes on: "why is it that I call you to salvation while you call me to the Fire?" (40:41), and he concludes: "and I commit my affair to God" (40:44). God guards him, and the punishment falls upon the clan of Fir'awn.

    In the Fire, the weak turn to those who grew proud: "We were indeed your followers" (40:47); these answer that they are all in it. Then the promise: "We surely help Our messengers and those who believe, in the near life" (40:51).

    He is told: "So be patient, for God's promise is truth" (40:55); ask forgiveness, glorify at evening and at dawn. To mankind: "Call upon Me, I will answer you" (40:60). God made the night for rest, and the human being from earth, from a drop and from a clinging form, a child then an old man.

    He must say that he has been commanded "to be true to the Guardian of all beings alone" (40:66). Whether God shows him part of the promise or calls him back to Him, it is to Him that they will be returned. Those before them believed on seeing the rigor, and their faith did not benefit them: "such is God's norm" (40:85).

    « And a believing man from the clan of Fir'awn, who withheld his faith, said » 40:28

    « Kill the sons of those who believed with him » 40:25

    « Call upon Me, I will answer you » 40:60

    ↓ Those who bear the Edifice ask the Garden for the believers; the next sura leads them there in troops, and shows the Agents around the Edifice.

11. 39

    In troops, toward the gates

    75 verses · gate

    No letters: the sura opens directly on "The descent of the Scripture comes from God, the All-Powerful, the Wise" (39:1). God speaks to the messenger: "We have sent down to you the Scripture in truth; so obey God, devoting the Law exclusively to Him" (39:2). Those who take allies say they obey them only to be brought closer to God; God will judge between them.

    He creates the heavens and the earth, wraps the night over the day; He creates the human from a single Self, and "He creates you in the bellies of your mothers, creation after creation, in three darknesses" (39:6). "And no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another" (39:7).

    Touched by harm, the human being calls; blessed, he forgets. Opposite, the one who keeps vigil at night, prostrating and standing: "Are those who know equal to those who do not know?" (39:9). Then a word for the believers who are hard pressed: "and God's earth is vast" (39:10), and the patient will receive their reward without count.

    He must say of himself: "I have been commanded to be the first of those true to Him alone" (39:12). He announces the good news to those "who listen to the saying and follow the most beautiful of it" (39:18). God has sent down "the most beautiful of discourse, a Scripture whose parts resemble one another, in couplets" (39:23), at which skins shiver.

    An example is set: a man who belongs to associates in disagreement, another who belongs wholly to one alone. Then the sentence that concerns him: "You will die, and they will die" (39:30), and all will quarrel before their Guardian. They seek to frighten him; he answers: "God suffices me" (39:38).

    He speaks to his people: "O my people, act according to your position, for I too am acting" (39:39). And he prays: "You alone will judge between Your obedient ones concerning that in which they used to differ" (39:46). Even with the whole earth as ransom, the wrongdoers would not redeem themselves.

    Then a door opens for those who have been excessive toward themselves: "do not lose heart regarding the benevolence of God" (39:53). Let them have recourse to their Guardian before the punishment, before a Self speaks its desolation for what it neglected.

    The Day: the earth in His grasp, the heavens folded in His right hand. The Horn is blown, all are thunderstruck, then standing, looking on. The record is set down, the witnesses brought forward: "it will be decided between them in truth, and they will not be wronged" (39:69).

    Two processions: those who disown are driven toward Jahannam in troops, and "those who guarded themselves before their Guardian will be driven toward the Garden, in troops" (39:73), gates open, welcomed with peace. They say: "Praise be to God, who has kept His promise to us" (39:74). The last shot shows the Agents around the Edifice, and the sentence that closes the phase of the tumult: "Praise be to God, Guardian of all beings" (39:75).

    « and God's earth is vast » 39:10

    « And those who guarded themselves before their Guardian will be driven toward the Garden, in troops » 39:73

    « Praise be to God, Guardian of all beings. » 39:75

    ↓ It will be decided in truth; in the next sura, two opposing parties ask Dawud to judge between them with truth.

Closing: The gate, without letters: "The descent of the Scripture comes from God, the All-Powerful, the Wise" (39:1).

← Summary frieze

1. 38

   Those who were ever-returning

   88 verses · label ص

   A letter, Ṣad, and an oath: "By the Recitation charged with the Reminder" (38:1). Those who disown are in might and rupture; behind them, annihilated generations who cried out too late. They marvel that a warner from among them has come to them, and call him "a worker of illusion, a great liar" (38:4).

   Their court rises and departs: "Go, and remain firm toward your deities!" (38:6). Would the Reminder have been sent down upon him, out of all of them? God answers that they have not yet tasted His punishment, and reduces their strength to little: "It is but an army among the parties, doomed to defeat" (38:11). Before them, the people of Nuh, the Aad, Fir'awn of the stakes, the Thamud, the people of Lut and the companions of the Thicket: "Those are the parties" (38:13).

   The order comes: "Be patient with what they say" (38:17), and remember Dawud, endowed with strength, "for he was ever-returning" (38:17). The mountains glorify with him at evening and at sunrise, the birds are gathered; his kingship is consolidated, and he receives wisdom.

   A courtroom scene, caught live: two men scale the oratory and enter upon Dawud, who takes fright. They reassure him and set out the case: "we are two opposing parties, one of us has committed iniquity against the other; so judge between us with truth, without excess" (38:22). One of them speaks: his brother has ninety-nine ewes, he has only one, and the brother overpowered him in address to take it. Their request, "and guide us to the middle of the path" (38:22), carries the verb and the word of the Fatiha: at the gate, all will take it up again (1:6).

   Dawud names the wrong: "He has certainly wronged you in demanding your ewe to add to his own" (38:24). Then he presumes that it is he who is being tried: he asks forgiveness, falls kneeling and returns. The request of the two parties then comes back to him from God, as a charge: "O Dawud, We have made you a successor on earth; so judge among mankind with truth, and do not follow emotion" (38:26).

   The heaven and the earth were not created in vain: those who have believed will not be treated like "the corrupters on earth" (38:28). And to the messenger: "Here is a blessed Scripture that We sent down to you, so that they may ponder its signs" (38:29).

   Then Sulayman, given to Dawud. In the evening, well-bred horses are displayed to him; he has them brought back and strokes their legs and necks. He is tried, a body is cast upon his throne-seat, and he returns: "My Guardian, forgive me, and bestow on me a dominion that will not befit anyone after me" (38:35). The wind runs gently at his command, the Diverters build and dive, and God says to him: "grace others with it or retain it, without account to render" (38:39).

   Then Ayyub, who calls out: "The Diverter has touched me with fatigue and suffering" (38:41). He is told to run with his foot: here is cool water to wash and to drink. "And We bestowed on him his family, and as many again with them" (38:43), and God found him patient. Then come Ibrahim, Ishaq, Yaacoub, Isma'il, Al-Yasa' and Dhul-Kifl: "This is a reminder" (38:49).

   Two abodes: the Gardens with open gates, and Jahannam, where the crowds who enter throw the blame at one another: "It is you who prepared it for us" (38:60). They search with their eyes for men they used to count among the wicked, and do not see them.

   He must say: "I am only a warner" (38:65), and that he had no knowledge of "the sublime court when it quarreled" (38:69). Then the account goes back to the origin: a human of clay, the Influx breathed into him, the Agents who prostrate, except Iblis: "I am better than him: You created me from fire, and You created him from clay" (38:76). Banished, he obtains a reprieve and swears to make them all err, except the refined obedient ones. The last word is for the messenger: "It is only a reminder for all beings" (38:87).

   « By the Recitation charged with the Reminder » 38:1

   « so judge among mankind with truth, and do not follow emotion » 38:26

   « And We bestowed on him his family, and as many again with them » 38:43

   ↓ He had no knowledge of the sublime court; the next sura shows the rebellious Diverters who cannot listen to it, and the Agents in ranks.

Closing: Ṣad (38:1), then: "By the Recitation charged with the Reminder" (38:1).

← Summary frieze

1. 37

   The Agents in ranks, the army of the envoys

   182 verses

   The film opens on ranks: "By those that range themselves in ranks, by those who rumble with force, by those who recite the Reminder" (37:1-3). Their word fits in one sentence: your deity is one. Above, the nearest heaven is adorned with heavenly bodies and guarded; the rebellious Diverters "cannot listen to the sublime court" (37:8), and whoever snatches a scrap of it is pursued by a blazing projectile.

   The camera comes back to the earth: "But you marvel, while they scoff" (37:12). Before a sign, they go further: manifest illusion; once dead, earth and bones, will they be raised? A single rumble suffices, bearing the very name of those who rumble, and they hear: "This is the Day of Separation, which you used to deny" (37:21).

   An order is given to executors whom the text does not name: "Gather those who did wrong, their spouses, and what they used to obey besides God" (37:22), then halt them so that they may be questioned. Face to face, they throw the blame at one another: "It was you who used to come at us from the right" (37:28). They used to call a deranged seductive orator the one who declared the envoys truthful.

   Facing them, the refined obedient ones, on couches, a cup of spring water passed around. One of them remembers an acolyte who doubted, looks, and sees him in the midst of the Blaze: "were it not for my Guardian's blessing, I would have been among those brought forth" (37:57). The tree of Zaqqoum comes out at the root of the Blaze; those people found their ancestors astray and rushed along in their footsteps.

   Then the army of the envoys files past, one by one, under the same refrain: saved, then greeted. Nuh calls out, he is saved with his family from the immense distress, and it is said: "Peace upon Nuh, among all beings!" (37:79).

   Ibrahim asks his father and his people: "What do you obey?" (37:85). He strikes their deities with his right hand; they build a structure to cast him into the blaze, and God makes them the lowest. Then he departs: "I am going to my Guardian; He will guide me" (37:99).

   A forbearing boy is announced to him. When the child reaches the age of endeavouring with him, the father speaks to him and asks his opinion: "O my little one, I see in a dream that I am slaughtering you; consider, then, what you think" (37:102). The son answers: "O my father, do what you are commanded" (37:102). He has laid him down on his temple when God calls out to him, "you have confirmed the vision" (37:105), and the child is ransomed with an immense sacrifice. Then Ishaq is announced.

   Moussa and Harun are saved from the immense distress: "and We helped them, and they were the victors" (37:116). Ilyas reproaches his people for calling upon Ba'l; Lut is saved with his family, and the ruins are there, before the eyes of those who listen: "And you surely pass by them in the morning, and at night" (37:138).

   Younes flees "to the laden vessel" (37:140), loses at the drawing of lots, and the fish engulfs him. He comes out of it because he was among those who glorify, is cast onto bare ground, unwell, then sent "to a hundred thousand, or more" (37:147), and they believe.

   He is told a second time to consult them: "does your Guardian have daughters, while they have sons?" (37:149). Then the Agents answer themselves, without being announced: "There is not one among us who does not have a known place" (37:164); they are those who stand in ranks, and those who glorify.

   Then the prior word: "they are indeed the ones who are helped, and it is surely Our army that is victorious" (37:173). The helped are those who have just filed past; the army is the one that presented itself in ranks. He receives the order to turn his back on them for a time and to watch, and the sura closes on glory, "And peace upon the envoys!" (37:181), and on praise.

   « who cannot listen to the sublime court » 37:8

   « O my little one, I see in a dream that I am slaughtering you; consider, then, what you think. » 37:102

   « they are indeed the ones who are helped, and it is surely Our army that is victorious. » 37:173

   ↓ It is Our army that is victorious; in the next sura, upon the city that denies its envoys, no army comes down from the sky.

2. 36

   Reinforced by a third

   83 verses · label يس

   Ya Sin, and an oath: "By the Recitation full of wisdom, you are surely among the envoys, upon a straight path" (36:2-4). After the envoys greeted with peace, it is he who is presented. He must warn "a people whose ancestors were not warned" (36:6); against most of them, the saying has come true: shackles on the necks, a barrier before them and a barrier behind them.

   He warns only the one who follows the Reminder and fears the All-Benevolent. God brings the dead back to life and records "what they advanced and the traces they leave behind" (36:12).

   He is given an example to tell: the companions of the city. Two envoys come, and they are denied: "so We reinforced them with a third" (36:14). The inhabitants answer: "You are nothing but humans like us" (36:15). The envoys have only one charge, "the clear transmission" (36:17), and they are threatened: "we will surely banish you" (36:18).

   Then a man appears: "And a man came hurrying from the far end of the Capital" (36:20). The same sentence will return, word for word, for the man who warns Moussa. He tells his people to follow "those who ask no reward of you, and who let themselves be guided" (36:21), then: "I have believed in your Guardian: so listen to me" (36:25). It is said to him: "Enter the Garden" (36:26), and his only regret is that his people do not know why he has been forgiven.

   Upon his people, nothing comes down: "And We did not send down upon his people, after him, any army from the sky, nor did We need to send one down" (36:28). After the victorious army that has just been presented, it takes only "a single cry, and there they were, extinguished" (36:29). "What desolation for the obedient ones!" (36:30).

   Then signs: the dead earth that yields grain, the palm trees and the vines, the night stripped of the day, the sun toward its place, the moon and its stations, "And each swims in an orbit" (36:40). Their descendants are carried in the laden vessel. When they are asked to spend, they answer: "Shall we feed one whom God, if He willed, would feed Himself?" (36:47).

   They ask for the date of the promise; it takes only a cry, which will seize them in the middle of their quarrel, with neither bequest nor return to their own. The Horn is blown: "Woe to us! Who has raised us up from where we slept?" (36:52). That day, "no Self will be wronged in the least" (36:54), and the companions of the Garden receive peace, "A saying from a Benevolent Guardian" (36:58).

   To the severed, God recalls the pact: not to obey the Diverter. The mouths are sealed: "their hands will speak to Us, and their feet will bear witness to what they used to earn" (36:65). About the messenger, a clarification: "We did not teach him the art of seduction" (36:69); it is only a Reminder and a clear Recitation.

   They have taken deities so as to be helped; these cannot help them, "though they will be, for them, an army brought forth" (36:75). The human being born of a drop asks who will bring the bones back to life; he must answer: "He who brought them into being the first time will bring them back to life" (36:79). His command is to say to a thing "Be", and it is.

   « so We reinforced them with a third » 36:14

   « And a man came hurrying from the far end of the Capital. » 36:20

   « And We did not send down upon his people, after him, any army from the sky, nor did We need to send one down. » 36:28

   ↓ Two envoys reinforced by a third; the next sura opens on the Agents made messengers, by twos, by threes, by fours.

Closing: Ya Sin (36:1), then: "By the Recitation full of wisdom, you are surely among the envoys" (36:2-3).

← Summary frieze

1. 35

   What God opens

   45 verses

   The film opens on praise and on an army of the sky: God "who made the Agents messengers organized into departments — by twos, by threes, by fours" (35:1). What He opens to men of benevolence, none can hold back; what He holds, none can release.

   Then the denied messenger is addressed: "And if they deny you, messengers before you were already denied" (35:4). Let not the near life delude them, the Diverter is an enemy; and to him: "So let not your Self waste away in desolation over them" (35:8). Might belongs entirely to God, and the plot of those who scheme evil is doomed to perish.

   The camera passes over creation: the earth, the drop, the pairs, "No female carries nor gives birth except with His knowledge" (35:11), the two seas, the ships that cleave the waves. Then comes the sentence that overturns the ranks: "O mankind, it is you who are the poor before God" (35:15). Each answers for himself: "no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another" (35:18), even a close relative.

   He warns only those who dread their Guardian unseen; he is only a warner, and "there is no community but a warner passed among it" (35:24). Those who know dread God; those who recite the Scripture and spend, secretly and openly, hope for a trade that does not perish. The Scripture passes in inheritance to chosen obedient ones: one who wrongs himself, one who is moderate, one who races ahead of the others in good deeds.

   Those who disown scream in the fire to be let out, saying they will act otherwise; they are answered that the warner had come. Then the oath of the people here: if a warner came, they would be better guided than any community. He came, and it only increased their aversion, "growing proud in the land, and evil plotting" (35:43). God's norm does not change; if He seized men for what they have earned, He would leave on the earth no being that moves, but He defers them to a named term.

   « O mankind, it is you who are the poor before God » 35:15

   « no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another » 35:18

   « You are but a warner. » 35:23

   ↓ He must ask the associators what they have created; the next sura takes up the challenge: they do not possess the weight of a particle.

2. 34

   The gnawed staff

   54 verses

   Those who disown say: "The Hour will not come to us" (34:3). He must answer, by his Guardian, that it will come, and that nothing escapes the record, not even the weight of a particle. Then he is pointed at, the man who announces a new creation after disintegration: "Has he invented a lie against God, or is he afflicted with some derangement?" (34:8).

   The film goes back to Dawud: the mountains and the birds echo with him, the iron softens in his hands, and the command is given him: "Make ample coats of mail, and measure well the interlocking of the mail" (34:11). Then Sulayman: the wind makes a month's journey in the morning and a month's in the evening, the Occulted build for him oratories, statues and basins. They are told to work in gratitude, and "few of My obedient ones are grateful" (34:13).

   Sulayman dies, and no one sees it: only "a living being of the earth eating away his staff" (34:14) reveals it, when the body falls. The Occulted then understand that they did not know what escapes the senses, and that they toiled for nothing in the degrading punishment.

   Saba' had two gardens, a wholesome land, and towns in plain view between it and the blessed towns, on measured roads: "Travel between them by nights and days, in safety" (34:18). They turn away and ask that the stages of their journeys be put far apart; the dam gives way, the gardens turn bitter, and the people are nothing more than a subject of tales.

   Back to the present: he must ask them who provides for them, then lay down the separation without violence: "You will not be questioned about our severance, nor will we be questioned about what you do" (34:25). He is sent "to all mankind" (34:28), bearer of good tidings and warner. On the Day, those who were deemed weak and those who grew proud throw the blame at each other, and the weak say: "It was rather a plot, night and day" (34:33).

   In every town, the opulent say they have more goods and children; it is neither goods nor children that bring one near to God. He is accused of obstructing the way of the ancestors; his only exhortation is "that you stand up for God, two by two or one by one, then reflect" (34:46), for their companion has no derangement. The truth has come; they cry that they believe at the last moment, from a place too far away.

   « a living being of the earth eating away his staff » 34:14

   « Travel between them by nights and days, in safety. » 34:18

   « that you stand up for God, two by two or one by one, then reflect » 34:46

   ↓ The wind ran for Sulayman; in the next sura, God sends a wind and invisible armies upon the parties.

3. 33

   The siege, then the messenger's house

   73 verses

   The film opens on a command to the Informant: "do not defer to those who disown nor to the hypocrites" (33:1), follow what is revealed to you, give mandate to God. Then the law corrects words: wives one repudiates by declaring them mothers are not mothers, "nor has He made your adopted sons your sons" (33:4). The wish of Fir'awn's house, to adopt the foundling, receives its rule here.

   "Call them by their fathers' names: that is more equitable with God" (33:5); if their fathers are not known, they are brothers in the Law and allies. The Informant is closer to the believers than they are to themselves, his wives are their mothers; and in the new community, ties of kinship come before the bond between believers and emigrants, "except that you do what is recognized toward your allies" (33:6). A solemn covenant is recalled, taken from the informants, from Nuh, Ibrahim, Moussa and Issa.

   Then the great scene: "when armies came against you" (33:9). They arrive from above and from below, sights deviate, "cores reached the throats" (33:10), and the believers are shaken with a violent shaking. God sends upon them a wind, and armies one does not see.

   In the town, the hypocrites say that God and His messenger promised nothing but delusion; a group cries: "O people of Yathrib, there is no place for you; return" (33:13), others ask to leave on the pretext of houses lacking privacy. Yet they had made a pact not to turn their backs, and flight will not save them from death. In the midst of fear, the messenger is given as a model: "a fine paragon for whoever hopes for God and the Last Day" (33:21).

   The believers, for their part, see the parties and say that this is the promise; some have kept their covenant to the end, others wait without changing anything. The siege lifts without battle: "and God spared the believers the fight" (33:25). Those of the people of the Scripture who had supported the assailants come down from their fortresses, and the believers inherit "their land, their abodes, and their goods" (33:27), and a land they had not trodden.

   The camera enters the house. The Informant's wives choose: the near life and its adornment, with a gracious release, or God, His messenger and the last abode. They are not like any other women: no yielding tone before the one whose core is sick, a recognized saying, remaining in their houses, and remembering what is recited there of God's signs and of wisdom.

   Then the same promise for all: "Men true to God alone and women true to God alone, believing men and believing women" (33:35), the veracious, the patient, the humble, the men and women who give, who abstain, who preserve their chastity, have one and the same forgiveness. A matter decided by God and His messenger leaves no option. The case of an adopted son's wife is settled so that there is no more discomfort for the believers, and the messenger learns that God has more right than people to be dreaded by him.

   He is sent "as a witness, a bearer of good tidings, and a warner" (33:45), and as an illuminating torch. Precise rules follow: the woman repudiated before being touched has no waiting period to observe and receives an enjoyment; the women lawful for him are named, then the list is closed; one does not enter his home without invitation, one does not linger there, and one asks his wives for an item from behind a veil.

   Those who trouble believing men and believing women who have committed nothing take upon themselves a slander. The women are ordered to draw over themselves part of their outer garments: "that is nearer so that they will be recognized and not be troubled" (33:59). The hypocrites and the rumor-mongers in the Capital are warned: if they do not stop, they will remain its neighbors only a short while.

   The sura closes on the trust: offered to the heavens, the earth and the mountains, which refuse to bear it, it is borne by the human being, "a great wrongdoer, deeply ignorant" (33:72).

   « Call them by their fathers' names: that is more equitable with God. » 33:5

   « You have certainly had, in the messenger of God, a fine paragon » 33:21

   « and God spared the believers the fight. » 33:25

   ↓ The human being bears the trust; the next sura goes back to his creation from clay and to the Influx breathed into him.

4. 32

   The day of the opening

   30 verses · label الم

   Alif Lam Mim, then: "The descent of the Scripture — no doubt possible — is from the Guardian of all beings" (32:2). It is given to him "that you may warn a people to whom no warner had come before you" (32:3). God directs the Command from the sky to the earth, in a day worth a thousand years of those one counts.

   The creation of the human being is shown: clay, an extract of despised water, then God "breathed into him of His Influx" (32:9), and gave him hearing, sight and Consciences. Yet they doubt a new creation; they are seen, on the Day, heads bowed, asking to return to do good.

   Facing them, those who believe fall prostrate when reminded of the signs, without growing proud: "Their sides draw away from their beds" (32:16), they call in fear and in hope, and they spend. The believer and the overstepper are not equal.

   A reminder to the Sons of Israel: Moussa received the Scripture, and among them leaders guided by God's command, "because they had been patient" (32:24). Here, they ask when this opening will be; on the day of the opening, faith will no longer profit the one who disowned. "So turn away from them, and wait" (32:30), for they are waiting.

   « The descent of the Scripture — no doubt possible — is from the Guardian of all beings. » 32:2

   « that you may warn a people to whom no warner had come before you » 32:3

   « So turn away from them, and wait, » 32:30

   ↓ Those who believe fall prostrate without growing proud; the next sura shows the one who turns his back, proud, as if deaf.

5. 31

   The wisdom of Luqman

   34 verses · label الم

   Alif Lam Mim: the signs of the Scripture full of wisdom, guidance for those who do good. Facing them, a man buys distracting discourse to lead astray from the way of God; when the signs are recited to him, he turns his back, "as though there were deafness in his ears" (31:7).

   The film enters a house: a father speaks to his son. "O my little one, do not associate with God" (31:13); association is an immense wrong. The text pauses on the child and his parents: "his mother carried him, frailty upon frailty" (31:14), his weaning is completed in two years; one does not defer to parents who push toward association, but one accompanies them in the near life in a recognized manner.

   The father goes on: nothing escapes God, even a mustard grain in a rock; maintain the Contact, order what is recognized, forbid what is disavowed, be patient. "And do not turn your cheek away from men" (31:18), do not walk on the earth parading; be moderate in your gait, and lower your voice.

   Then creation made subject, and the surest handhold for whoever renders his direction true. If all the trees on the earth were pens, and the sea fed by seven seas, the words of God would not be exhausted. At sea, when the wave covers them, they call upon God alone. The day comes "when no parent will avail his child" (31:33), and "no Self has any idea what it will earn tomorrow" (31:34).

   « association is surely an immense wrong. » 31:13

   « his mother carried him, frailty upon frailty » 31:14

   « no Self has any idea what it will earn tomorrow » 31:34

   ↓ No Self knows what it will earn tomorrow; the next sura opens on a defeat, and on a victory announced for within a few years.

6. 30

   Before and after

   60 verses · label الم

   Alif Lam Mim, then war news: "The Romans were victorious, in the nearest land" (30:2-3). The believers have just been defeated; the promise follows at once: "but after their victory, they will be defeated, within a few years" (30:3-4). "To God belongs the command, before and after" (30:4). They are the people "of severe rigor" (48:16) toward whom the notables left behind had been called.

   On that day, "the believers will rejoice in God's help" (30:4); God does not fail His promise. The others see only the surface of the near life; let them travel the earth and look at the end of those before them, stronger than they, who had tilled the earth and populated it: God did not wrong them, it was they who wronged themselves.

   On the day the Hour rises, men separate. Then come the signs, one by one: the earth from which they are created, then spouses, "so that you might find rest in them, and He placed between you affection and benevolence" (30:21), the variety of tongues and colors, sleep, the lightning feared and hoped for, the sky and the earth that stand by His command.

   An example is drawn from themselves: would they share their goods equally with those bound to them by oath? Then the central command: "Maintain your direction toward the Law, wholly turned toward God" (30:30), the original nature given to mankind, without being among those who divided their Law into factions.

   Justice enters the law: "So give to the close relative his due, and to the destitute and the passing traveler" (30:38). The loan that swells in people's goods does not swell with God; what is given in pure liberality doubles. And the observation: "Corruption has uncovered itself on land and sea because of what the hands of men have earned" (30:41).

   The winds announce rain, the dead earth revives, and messengers of old are recalled: it was a duty upon God "to help the believers" (30:47). But he cannot make the dead hear, nor the deaf who withdraw. The human being goes from a weakness to a strength, then from a strength to a weakness and white hair.

   On the Day, the severed swear they stayed only an hour. This Recitation has multiplied examples; it is for him to hold firm: "So be patient" (30:60), for God's promise is truth, and let not those who have no certainty make him light.

   « The Romans were victorious, in the nearest land » 30:2

   « And on that day the believers will rejoice in God's help » 30:4

   « So give to the close relative his due, and to the destitute and the passing traveler » 30:38

   ↓ God did not wrong those before; the next sura names them one by one and says how each was seized.

7. 29

   The spider's house

   69 verses · label الم

   Alif Lam Mim, then a question put to all: "Do men think that they will be left" (29:2) because they say they believe, without being put to the trial? Those before were tried, so that God may distinguish those who speak true from the liars. Toward parents, fine conduct; but if they strive to make one associate, one does not defer to them.

   The trial is seen up close: some, "when they are troubled for God's cause" (29:10), take the persecution of men for God's punishment, then say they were with the believers when help arrives. Those who disown propose: follow our way, we will bear your faults; they will bear only their own loads, and others besides.

   Nuh spends a thousand years less fifty among his people, and the flood seizes them. Ibrahim tells his own that they obey only simulacra and that provision is with God; the only answer is "Kill him, or burn him!" (29:24), and God saves him from the fire.

   Then comes exile: Lut believes him, and Ibrahim says: "I am emigrating toward my Guardian" (29:26). He receives Ishaq and Yaacoub, and his descendants carry the function of informing and the Scripture.

   Lut reproaches his people for indecency, for cutting the road and committing what is disavowed in their gatherings; they defy him to bring the punishment. The messengers pass by Ibrahim, then by Lut, distressed on their account; he is saved with his family, except his wife. Shu'ayb at Madyan, the Aad, the Thamud, Qaroon, Fir'awn and Haman: each is seized for his wrong, "but it was themselves that they wronged" (29:40).

   The image that gives the sura its name: those who take allies besides God are like the spider that makes itself a house, "and the flimsiest of houses is surely the house of the spider" (29:41). To him: recite the Scripture and maintain the Contact, which forbids indecency. And the instruction of peace: "do not argue with the people of the Scripture except in the most beautiful way" (29:46), except with those who do wrong; our deity and yours is one.

   They demand signs; he is only an explicit warner, and the Scripture recited to them should suffice them, coming from one who recited no scripture and traced none with his hand. They ask to hasten the punishment. To the persecuted believers comes the call: "O My obedient ones who have believed, My earth is vast" (29:56); every Self will taste death, and the patient will have high chambers. So many beings do not carry their provision: God provides for them.

   At sea, they call upon God alone, then associate on dry land. The final question is put to the keepers of the House: "Do they not see that We have placed an inviolable and secure precinct, while all around them men are being snatched away?" (29:67). The sura closes on a promise: "And those who have striven for Us — We will surely guide them on Our ways" (29:69).

   « Do men think that they will be left » 29:2

   « O My obedient ones who have believed, My earth is vast » 29:56

   « And those who have striven for Us — We will surely guide them on Our ways » 29:69

   ↓ Qaroon, Fir'awn and Haman grew proud in the land; the next sura tells their story, up to Qaroon, whom the earth swallows.

Closing: Alif Lam Mim (29:1), then: "Do men think that they will be left" (29:2).

← Summary frieze

1. 28

   What Fir'awn was wary of

   88 verses · label طسم

   Ṭa Sin Mim, then the announced account: a part of the information concerning Moussa and Fir'awn. The setting is a regime: Fir'awn "rose up in the land and split its inhabitants into factions" (28:4), he keeps a group weak, slaughters their sons and violates the modesty of their women. God states His intention: "And We wanted to grace those who had been kept weak in the land" (28:5), to make them leaders and heirs, and to show Fir'awn what he was wary of.

   A mother receives the inspiration: "cast him into the deep, without fear or grief" (28:7), for "We will restore him to you" (28:7). Fir'awn's clan takes in the child, and Fir'awn's wife says not to kill him, "or that we adopt him as a child" (28:9): it is the wish of a foreign house, whose rule will come further on, "Call them by their fathers' names" (33:5). The mother's Conscience empties, she nearly reveals everything; the sister follows the trail from afar.

   The child refuses every wet nurse; the sister proposes a family that will take care of him, "Thus We restored him to his mother, so that her gaze might find rest" (28:13), and that she would know that God's promise is true. Having become a man, Moussa receives judgment and knowledge.

   In the Capital, at an hour of inattention, two men are fighting; Moussa strikes the one from the enemy camp and kills him. He recognizes the work of the Diverter, asks forgiveness, and commits himself: "I will never again be a support for the severed" (28:17). The next day, the same man calls on him again for help, and Moussa is accused of wanting to be a tyrant on the earth.

   A man comes running from the far end of the Capital: the court is deliberating to kill him. Moussa leaves, "fearful, on watch" (28:21), and asks: "My Guardian, save me from the wrongdoing people" (28:21). He does not know where to go; he heads toward Madyan and says: "It may be that my Guardian will guide me to the straight way" (28:22). Madyan is the place of asylum set for mankind, for those who do not know where to go: at its water, he finds "a community of men watering" (28:23), and two women waiting apart, because their father is very old. He waters for them, then withdraws to the shade: "My Guardian, I am indeed in great need of whatever good You would send down to me" (28:24). The refugee asks for guidance: the Fatiha will take up this request, at the gate of the Book (1:6).

   One of them comes back, walking with reserved modesty: her father is calling him. The old man listens to the fugitive's account and tells him: "Do not fear, you have escaped the wrongdoing people" (28:25). It is the word of asylum. The daughter advises hiring the one who is strong and trustworthy; the father proposes a marriage in return for eight or ten years of service, without constraint, and the agreement is made before God. He stays there for years: "You remained years among the people of Madyan" (20:40).

   The term fulfilled, Moussa leaves with his family and sees a fire on the side of the Mount. From the tree, in the blessed place, he is called: "O Moussa, it is indeed I, God, the Guardian of all beings!" (28:30). The staff quivers, the hand comes out white; he fears being killed for the Self he killed, asks for Harun, whose tongue is clearer, and both receive an authority.

   Before Fir'awn, the signs are called illusion. Fir'awn proclaims: "O court, I know of no deity for you other than myself" (28:38), and asks Haman for a belvedere to climb up and see the deity of Moussa. He grows proud with his armies, without any right; they are cast into the deep, and become leaders who call to the Fire.

   The account turns back toward the one who listens to it. We are in the time of the establishment, and he now lives in Madyan, the very place where Moussa had found asylum: the capital of the region and its chief town, "the metropolis of cities" (6:92) that he must warn; but in Moussa's time, he was not on the western side, and "you did not sojourn among the people of Madyan, reciting Our signs to them" (28:45); it is a benevolence, so that he may warn a people who had had no warner. People of the Scripture believe in it and answer the ignorant: "To us our works, to you yours; peace upon you" (28:55). But "You indeed do not guide whom you love" (28:56).

   Those here say: "If we follow the guidance with you, we will be snatched from our land" (28:57). The answer reminds them of the inviolable and secure precinct to which the fruits of all things flow, and of the annihilated towns that God has inherited. On the Day, the associates called upon do not answer.

   Qaroon, of Moussa's people, commits exactions against his own; the mere keys of his treasures weigh down a band of men. His people tell him not to exult and not to seek corruption; he answers that everything comes to him from his knowledge, goes out in his finery, and "We caused the earth to swallow him and his abode" (28:81). The last abode is for those who want neither to rise up nor corruption; and to him, the promise: the One who imposed the Recitation on him "will surely bring you back to a place of return" (28:85), as He had told Moussa's mother that He would restore him to her, and had done so. The promise of return is set down here; its consequences will be seen in 9, when the House is taken back.

   « And We wanted to grace those who had been kept weak in the land » 28:5

   « O court, I know of no deity for you other than myself. » 28:38

   « will surely bring you back to a place of return » 28:85

   ↓ Fir'awn says "O court" to declare himself the only deity; in the next sura, the queen says it to ask her people's opinion.

2. 27

   Enlighten me

   93 verses · label طس

   Ṭa Sin: the signs of the Recitation and of an explicit Scripture, for those who are certain of the last life; "And you, you surely receive the Recitation from a Wise, an All-Knowing" (27:6). Moussa sees a fire, he is called, the staff quivers, the hand comes out white among nine signs toward Fir'awn; they deny them "while their Self was certain of them" (27:14).

   Dawud and Sulayman receive knowledge; Sulayman inherits from Dawud and knows the language of the birds. His armies of Occulted, humans and birds advance in columns up to the valley of the ants, where an ant cries: "O ants, enter your dwellings, lest Sulayman and his armies crush you without sensing it" (27:18). The king smiles, and asks to be grateful.

   The scout is missing at the review; he comes back from Saba' with certain information: "I found a woman ruling over them" (27:23), with an immense edifice, and a people who prostrate before the sun. Sulayman entrusts him with a letter: in the name of God, do not rise up against me, and come as people true to God.

   The queen gathers her court: "O court, enlighten me about my affair; I issue no ordinance without you bearing witness to it" (27:32). Her chiefs say they are strong and ready for war, but leave the matter to her; she decides for peace, for kings corrupt the cities they enter and humiliate the mighty: "Now, I am going to send them a gift" (27:35).

   Sulayman refuses the gift and threatens armies. Then the queen's edifice is brought to him before his gaze returns; he sees in it a test: will he be grateful? When she arrives, she recognizes her transformed edifice, takes the crystal belvedere for a sheet of water, and says: "I am true, with Sulayman, to God, Guardian of all beings" (27:44).

   The Thamud split into two factions; in the Capital, "nine individuals who sowed corruption on the earth and made nothing sound" (27:48) swear to attack Salih by night with his family, then to lie to his next of kin. Their plot turns back on them, their houses remain empty. Lut's people want to expel his clan, "for they are people who want to purify themselves" (27:56).

   Then a series of questions: who created the heavens and the earth, made the earth a stable place, "who answers the one who is hard-pressed, when he calls upon Him" (27:62), who guides in the darkness and provides? Is there a deity with God? They doubt the coming out and speak of legends of the ancients; let him not be distressed by their plots.

   This Recitation relates to the Sons of Israel most of their differences. He cannot make the dead hear; a conscious being will come out of the earth, the Horn will sound, the mountains will pass as the clouds pass. And he states his mission: "I have only been ordered to obey the Guardian of this land, which He has made inviolable" (27:91), to recite the Recitation, and to be only one of the warners.

   « O court, enlighten me about my affair; I issue no ordinance without you bearing witness to it. » 27:32

   « kings, when they enter a city, corrupt it » 27:34

   « I have only been ordered to obey the Guardian of this land, which He has made inviolable » 27:91

   ↓ Nine individuals sow corruption on the earth and make nothing sound; in the next sura, Salih says not to defer to those who do the same.

3. 26

   The messengers' refrain

   227 verses · label طسم

   Ṭa Sin Mim, then the messenger alone facing refusal: "Perhaps you will consume yourself because they are not believers" (26:3). God could make their necks bow under a sign; He does not do so. A refrain sets in, which will return after each account: "There is surely in that a sign" (26:8), but most of them are not believers.

   Moussa is sent to the wrongdoing people; he is afraid, his chest tightens, his tongue does not loosen, he asks for Harun. The order is simple: "let the Sons of Israel go with us" (26:17). Fir'awn reminds him that he raised him as a child and that he killed; Moussa answers that he was astray, that he fled out of fear, and turns the favor around: "that you enslaved the Sons of Israel!" (26:22).

   Fir'awn asks what the Guardian of all beings is, mocks before his entourage, calls the messenger deranged, then threatens: "I will surely put you among the imprisoned" (26:29). The staff becomes a serpent, the hand comes out white; the court sends for the workers of illusion from all the capitals.

   At the appointment, the workers of illusion throw their ropes saying "By the might of Fir'awn" (26:44); the staff snatches up what they fake, and they fall prostrate. Fir'awn promises hands and feet cut off and the stake; they answer: "No hurt!" (26:50), it is toward their Guardian that they turn around.

   Moussa leaves by night with the obedient ones; Fir'awn calls them a "small band" (26:54) and pursues them. When the two hosts see each other, the companions cry that they are overtaken; Moussa answers that his Guardian is with him. The sea splits, some are saved, the others drowned, and the gardens and the springs of Fir'awn return in inheritance to the Sons of Israel.

   Ibrahim asks his father and his people what they obey; they follow their ancestors. He describes his Guardian: the One who created him and guides him, feeds him and gives him drink, "and who, when I am ill, heals me" (26:80), and he asks forgiveness for his father, who is astray. On the Day, neither goods nor sons are of use, "except to one who comes to God with an intact core" (26:89).

   Then five times the same scene, almost the same words: a brother rises, "I am indeed for you a trustworthy messenger" (26:107), guard yourselves, I ask you no reward. Nuh refuses to drive away the lowliest who followed him, and he is threatened with banishment; Hud reproaches the Aad for their monuments on every hill and their tyrants' grip.

   Salih warns the Thamud against the command of the extravagant who corrupt the earth, and sets down the she-camel, with her turn to drink; they mutilate her. Lut is threatened to be "among those expelled" (26:167), and he is saved with his family. Shu'ayb commands the companions of the Thicket: "And weigh with the straight scale" (26:182), and do not defraud people of their things. Each account ends with the same refrain.

   The camera comes back to him: it is a descent from the Guardian of all beings; the trustworthy Influx came down upon his core, in a flawless tongue, and the scholars of the Sons of Israel know it. It is not the Diverters who brought it down. The order comes to him: "And warn your closest kinsmen" (26:214), and lower your wing for the believers who follow you.

   The sura closes on the seductive orators, followed by those who wander, who say what they do not do, except those who have believed and "helped themselves after being wronged" (26:227).

   « Perhaps you will consume yourself because they are not believers. » 26:3

   « let the Sons of Israel go with us » 26:17

   « And weigh with the straight scale, » 26:182

   ↓ The Influx came down upon his core so that he may be among the warners; the next sura opens on the Discernment sent down to warn all beings.

Closing: Ṭa Sin Mim (26:1), then: "These are the signs of the explicit Scripture" (26:2).

← Summary frieze

1. 25

   The obedient ones of the All-Benevolent

   77 verses

   Blessed is the One who sent down the Discernment upon His obedient one, "that he may be a warner to all beings" (25:1), the One who has neither child nor associate and has measured everything exactly. Facing Him, deities who create nothing and possess neither death nor life. Those who disown say of the Recitation: "This is nothing but a distortion he invented" (25:4), legends dictated to him at dawn and at dusk.

   They mock the man: "What is with this messenger, that he eats food and walks in the marketplaces?" (25:7). No Agent at his side, no treasure, no garden; the wrongdoers conclude: "You follow none but a man abused by illusion" (25:8). All the envoys before him ate and walked in the marketplaces; some are, for others, a trial.

   The Day: the Inferno roars from afar, those who were worshipped disown their worshippers, the Agents come down when the sky splits, and sovereignty belongs to the All-Benevolent. The wrongdoer bites his hands and regrets the close friend who led him astray. And the messenger complains: "O my Guardian, my people have indeed deserted this Recitation" (25:30).

   They ask why the Recitation does not come down all at once; it is to strengthen his Conscience, and it is arranged in a measured order. Moussa and Harun, Nuh, the Aad, the Thamud, the companions of ar-Rass saw those who denied them destroyed; yet people pass by the town that received the baneful rain without seeing it. They mock him, and take their emotion as a deity.

   Then the signs of a world in order: the shadow stretched out, the night as a garment, sleep as rest, the winds, the purifying water, the two seas separated by a barrier. The order is given: "So do not defer to those who disown" (25:52), and strive against them by it with a great striving; the great striving is waged through the Recitation.

   He asks no reward, except that whoever wishes take a way toward his Guardian, and he gives mandate to the Living who does not die. When they are told to prostrate before the All-Benevolent, they ask what the All-Benevolent is.

   The answer is a portrait: "And the obedient ones of the All-Benevolent are those who walk upon the earth gently" (25:63), who answer the ignorant with peace, spend the night prostrate, spend without squandering or stinting, do not kill the Self that God has made inviolable, do not fornicate, do not bear witness to falsehood. They ask, for their spouses and their descendants, "a rest of the gaze" (25:74), and will be received "with a greeting and a peace" (25:75).

   « that he may be a warner to all beings » 25:1

   « And the obedient ones of the All-Benevolent are those who walk upon the earth gently » 25:63

   « bestow on us, from our spouses and our descendants, a rest of the gaze » 25:74

   ↓ "This is nothing but a distortion", say those who disown about the Recitation; in the next sura, a distortion circulates among the believers themselves.

2. 24

   Light upon light

   64 verses

   The film opens on an act of law: "This is a surah which We have sent down and which We have made obligatory" (24:1). The first quantified penalty falls: a hundred lashes for the fornicatress and the fornicator, before a group of believers, without kindness bending the Law of God. The fornicatress here is the woman bound to a man by the marriage contract; the case of 4:15, that of women among themselves, is different: no penalty, the family keeps the woman at home.

   At once comes the protection of women: those who accuse women protected by the marriage bond without bringing four witnesses receive eighty lashes, "and never accept their testimony again" (24:4). The husband who accuses with no witness but himself swears four times, then a fifth; "And the punishment will be averted from her if she testifies four times by God" (24:8) that he is lying.

   Then the affair itself: a distortion has circulated among the believers, carried by a band. The believing men and women should have presumed good and said: "This is a manifest distortion!" (24:12). The rumor passed from tongue to tongue, without knowledge, held to be trivial when it is immense.

   One must not follow the steps of the Diverter. And those who have ampleness must not swear to stop giving "to their relatives, the destitute, and those who emigrated in the way of God" (24:22): let them pardon and turn the page. Those who accuse heedless believing women are cursed; their tongues, their hands and their feet will bear witness against them.

   The rules of houses: one does not enter another's home before making oneself known and greeting; if you are told "Return", you go back. Believing men and women cast down their sights and preserve their chastity; the women draw their covering cloth over the neckline of their chest, and show what arouses desire only to the relatives named one by one. The unmarried are married, the writ is drawn up with those bound by oath who ask for it, and the order falls: "do not compel your young women to prostitution" (24:33).

   In the midst of the rules, the light: "God is the Light of the heavens and the earth" (24:35), a niche, a lamp, a glass like a brilliant star, an olive tree neither of the east nor of the west, "Light upon light" (24:35). In the houses where His name is remembered, men whom trade does not distract; facing them, the works of those who disown are a mirage for the thirsty, darkness upon a stormy sea.

   Some say they have believed and deferred, then slip away when called to be judged, unless right is on their side. The promise comes to those who believe: God will make them successors on the earth, will establish their Law, "and that He will surely change their state, after their fear, into security" (24:55).

   The last rules return to the house: those bound by oath and children ask permission at three moments of privacy, older women may lay aside their garments, and there is no blame on the blind, the lame and the sick for eating at their relatives' homes. "And when you enter houses, greet one another" (24:61); no one leaves a common affair without asking the messenger's permission.

   « This is a surah which We have sent down and which We have made obligatory » 24:1

   « God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. » 24:35

   « that He will surely change their state, after their fear, into security. » 24:55

   ↓ "And turn all together to God, O believers"; the next sura opens on what is accomplished: "The believers have succeeded" (23:1).

3. 23

   The believers have succeeded

   118 verses

   "The believers have succeeded" (23:1): humble in their Contact, turned away from idle talk, giving pure liberality, preserving their chastity, "watchful over their trusts and their pact" (23:8); they are the heirs of the Firdaws.

   Creation, shot by shot: an extract of clay, a drop "in a secure and stable place" (23:13), a clinging form, an embryo, bones clothed with flesh, then a different creation. Water comes down in measure, palm trees and vines grow, the olive tree comes out of Mount Sinai, the livestock carry men.

   Nuh is called a deranged man by the court of his people; he asks: "My Guardian, help me, for they have denied me" (23:26). He builds the ship under God's eyes and, once aboard, asks for a blessed place of landing. Then another generation, another messenger, the same accusation, and the Cry.

   The messengers follow one another, one after the other, and are denied; Moussa and Harun go to Fir'awn and his court, who refuse to believe "two humans like ourselves, while their people obey us" (23:47). The son of Maryam and his mother become a sign, and God "took them in on a height endowed with stability and spring water" (23:50).

   "And this community of yours is indeed a single community" (23:52), but they have split it into pieces, each party content with what it holds. Those who hasten in good give with a trembling core; no Self is burdened beyond its capacity. The opulent will scream when the punishment seizes them.

   They are questioned: did they not recognize their messenger? To whom does the earth belong, who grants asylum and against whom no asylum is obtained? They answer: to God. And the order is given him: "Repel evil with what is more beautiful" (23:96), and seek God's refuge from the incitements of the Diverters.

   On the Day, the ties of lineage no longer exist; the scales decide. Those who mocked a fraction of obedient ones who asked forgiveness are pushed back; those they mocked are today "the triumphant" (23:111). The sura closes on the prayer given to him: "My Guardian, forgive and have benevolence" (23:118).

   « The believers have succeeded » 23:1

   « We took them in on a height endowed with stability and spring water » 23:50

   « Repel evil with what is more beautiful » 23:96

   ↓ Creation step by step, drop, clinging form, embryo, returns in the next sura for those who doubt the Raising.

4. 22

   The quaking, the House, the permission

   78 verses

   The film opens on the Hour: "the quaking of the Hour is an immense thing" (22:1). On that day, "every woman with a child in her care will be oblivious of the child she was caring for" (22:2), pregnant women lay down their burden, and men seem drunk without being so.

   To whoever doubts the Raising, the text shows the earth, the drop, the clinging form, the embryo, the child coming out, maturity, and the lifeless earth that quivers under water. Among men, one argues without knowledge, another obeys God "in a skewed manner" (22:11): if good betides him, he is at ease; if a trial comes, he turns back on his face.

   The believers, the Reoriented, the Aspirants, the Helpers, the Magians and those who associate: God will separate between them on the Day. Two adversaries quarrel about their Guardian; to some, garments of fire, to the others, bracelets and silk.

   Then the heart of the film: those who disown bar from the way of God and from "the inviolable place of prostration, which We made for mankind equally, whether one dwells there or is passing through" (22:25). Ibrahim receives the site of the House, the order to purify it for those who frequent it, and to proclaim the Hajj: "they will come to you on foot and on every lean mount" (22:27).

   The pilgrims witness benefits, remember the name of God over the beasts, and the order is given: "feed the distressed, the poor" (22:28). The offering beasts feed the one who is content without asking and the one who comes forward; neither their flesh nor their blood reaches God, only guardedness accrues to Him.

   Then comes the permission: "Permission is given to those who are being fought, because they have been wronged" (22:39), "those who were expelled from their abodes without right" (22:40), for having said that their Guardian is God. The reason is the protection of all: otherwise "there would have been demolished hermitages, synagogues, places of Contact, and places of prostration" (22:40). Those whom God establishes will maintain the Contact and order what is recognized.

   If they deny him, Nuh, the Aad, the Thamud, Ibrahim, Lut, Madyan and Moussa were denied; towns stand empty, with an abandoned well and a lofty palace, for it is the cores that grow blind. What the Diverter casts into the wish of the messengers, God copies over, then makes His signs unequivocal.

   The emigrants killed or dead on the way of God will be provided with a fine provision; and the one who pays back "to the exact measure of what was done to him" (22:60), then suffers iniquity, God will help. To each community its practice; let none dispute with him about his.

   An example: those who are invoked would not create a fly, nor take back what it snatches from them. The sura closes on the order to strive for God, without hardship in the Law, "the doctrine of your father Ibrahim" (22:78): they have been named the ones true to God, witnesses over mankind.

   « which We made for mankind equally, whether one dwells there or is passing through » 22:25

   « Permission is given to those who are being fought, because they have been wronged » 22:39

   « those who were expelled from their abodes without right » 22:40

   ↓ If they deny you, Moussa too was denied; the next sura tells of Moussa, Ibrahim, Lut, Nuh, and how God saved them.

5. 21

   We answered him

   112 verses

   "Mankind's reckoning has drawn near, while they are turned away in heedlessness" (21:1). The reminder arrives, they listen to it while playing; in secret, they say to each other that he is only a human, a worker of illusion, a jumble of confused dreams, a seductive orator, and demand a sign as for the first ones.

   The envoys before were men who ate and died; God kept His promise and saved whom He willed. Shattered towns flee under the rigor: "Do not run off" (21:13), they are told, return to your affluence. God does not play: "We hurl truth against falsehood instead, so it crushes it" (21:18).

   If there were other deities, heavens and earth would be corrupted. The Agents are honored obedient ones, not children. The heavens and the earth were a compact mass, and from water comes every living thing. "Every Self will taste death" (21:35), and the trial comes through evil and through good. He is mocked; the human being was created of haste.

   The scales of equity will be set up, to the weight of a mustard grain. Moussa and Harun received the Discernment. Ibrahim breaks his people's statues, except the great one, and tells them to question it; they relapse onto their heads and cry out to burn him. "O fire, be coolness and peace upon Ibrahim" (21:69).

   He is saved with Lut "to the land that We blessed for all beings" (21:71), and Lut is saved from the vicious town. Nuh calls: "We answered him" (21:76). Dawud and Sulayman judge the case of a tillage ravaged at night by sheep, and Sulayman receives the understanding of it; the coat of mail is made to protect men from their own violence.

   Then the series of answered calls: Ayyub, touched by harm, to whom his family is restored; Isma'il, Idris, Dhul-Kifl, patient; Dhu'n-Nun, who calls out in the darkness and whom God saves from anguish, "and thus do We save the believers" (21:88).

   Zakariya, alone: "My Guardian, do not forsake me, alone" (21:89); he receives Yahya, and his wife is made sound. She who guarded her chastity receives the Influx, and she and her son become a sign. "This community of yours is indeed a single community" (21:92), but they have split it.

   Yajuj and Majuj pour forth, the true promise draws near, the sky is folded like a binder. And the writing is recalled: "the earth will be inherited by My sound obedient ones" (21:105). To him: "And We did not send you except as a benevolence for all beings" (21:107); he does not know whether what is promised is near or far.

   « O fire, be coolness and peace upon Ibrahim. » 21:69

   « that the earth will be inherited by My sound obedient ones » 21:105

   « And We did not send you except as a benevolence for all beings. » 21:107

   ↓ Moussa and Harun received a reminder for those who dread; the next sura sends them to Fir'awn: perhaps he will dread.

6. 20

   Not for you to toil

   135 verses · label طه

   Ṭa Ha, then: "We did not send down upon you the Recitation for you to toil" (20:2), but as a reminder for whoever dreads. The question asked in 79 returns: "And has the discourse concerning Moussa reached you?" (20:9).

   Moussa sees a fire and tells his family to stay; he is called: take off your sandals, you are in the sanctified valley of Tuwa. The staff thrown down becomes alive, the hand comes out white: "Go to Fir'awn: he has exceeded all measure" (20:24). Moussa asks that his chest be opened, his tongue untied, and Harun as assistant.

   God reminds him of his childhood: his mother inspired to put him in a chest and cast him into the deep, the enemy who takes him in, the sister who walks and proposes who will take care of him, and the return "to your mother, that her gaze might find rest and she not grieve" (20:40). He killed, he was saved from anguish, he spent years among the people of Madyan.

   The order is given to two: "Speak to him gently; perhaps he will remember, or feel dread" (20:44). They are afraid; God is with them, He hears and sees. Their request to Fir'awn: "let the Sons of Israel go with us, and do not punish them" (20:47), and peace upon whoever follows guidance.

   Fir'awn asks who their Guardian is, what of the first generations; then he accuses Moussa of wanting to drive them from their land and sets an appointment, the day of adornment. The workers of illusion throw; Moussa feels a fear: "Do not fear, for it is you who are the uppermost" (20:68). The workers of illusion fall prostrate.

   Fir'awn threatens to cut off their hands and feet and to fix them to the trunks of palm trees. They answer: "So decide whatever you are to decide" (20:72), you decide only in this near life. Then Moussa leaves by night, a dry road opens in the sea, Fir'awn and his armies are covered over: "And Fir'awn led his people astray; he did not guide them" (20:79).

   "O Sons of Israel! We saved you from your enemy" (20:80): the appointment at the Mount, the manna and the quails. Moussa hastens toward his Guardian; behind him, as-Samiri brings out of the ornaments a calf that lows. Harun had warned; Moussa comes back in anger and seizes him, and Harun says that he feared dividing the Sons of Israel. The calf is burned and scattered in the deep.

   The Day: the mountains scattered into a bare plain, voices humbled, intercession by permission. Thus the Recitation came down, flawless: "And do not hasten with the Recitation before its revelation is completed for you" (20:114), and he must say: my Guardian, increase my knowledge.

   Adam is bound by a pact and forgets; he has the assurance of the Garden, without hunger, without nakedness, without thirst, without sun. The Diverter whispers to him of the tree of eternity; he disobeys, then his Guardian chooses him and guides him: "whoever follows My guidance shall neither stray nor toil" (20:123). To him, finally: patience, glorification, not stretching his eyes toward the splendor given to others, and enjoining the Contact on his family.

   « We did not send down upon you the Recitation for you to toil, » 20:2

   « Speak to him gently; perhaps he will remember, or feel dread. » 20:44

   « And do not hasten with the Recitation before its revelation is completed for you » 20:114

   ↓ The Recitation did not come down for him to toil; the next sura shows Zakariya, Maryam and Ibrahim, who are not wretched in invoking their Guardian.

7. 19

   A hidden call, children given

   98 verses · label كهيعص

   Kaf Ha Ya ʿAyn Ṣad, then: "A remembrance of your Guardian's benevolence toward His obedient one Zakariya" (19:2), who calls with a hidden call. He is old, his bones weakened, his head white, he fears for his kin after him, and his wife is barren: "So bestow on me, from Yourself, an ally who will inherit from me" (19:5-6).

   Yahya is announced to him; he asks how, and receives as a sign three nights without speech. Yahya takes the Code with strength, receives judgment as a child, tenderness and purity: "And virtuous toward his parents, he was neither tyrannical nor disobedient" (19:14).

   Maryam withdraws from her family to an eastern place, behind a veil. The Influx presents itself to her in the form of a human; she takes refuge with the All-Benevolent. He announces to her a pure boy; she answers that no human has touched her, and she is told: "That is easy for Me" (19:21).

   She withdraws with the child to a remote place. "The pangs of childbirth drove her to the trunk of the palm tree" (19:23); alone, she wishes she were dead and forgotten. A voice consoles her: a stream beneath her, fresh dates, and a vow of silence for that day.

   She comes back to her people carrying him; she is accused of a monstrous thing. "So she pointed to him" (19:29), and the child speaks: he is God's obedient one, bound to virtue toward his mother, neither tyrannical nor wretched, "And peace be upon me the day I was born" (19:33).

   Ibrahim speaks to his father, four times "O my father"; the father threatens: "If you do not desist, I will surely banish you!" (19:46). Ibrahim answers "Peace be upon you" and separates from them; he receives Ishaq and Yaacoub. Then Moussa called from the right side of the Mount, Harun given, Isma'il true to his promise, Idris raised to an eminent rank.

   A generation lets the Contact waste away, except whoever repents. Those who disown ask which of the two factions has the better position; others claim that the All-Benevolent has taken a child for Himself, an enormity that would split the heavens. Each will come alone on the Day. To him: "So do not be hasty against them" (19:84); the Recitation is made easy in his tongue, to announce and to warn.

   « A remembrance of your Guardian's benevolence toward His obedient one Zakariya » 19:2

   « The pangs of childbirth drove her to the trunk of the palm tree. » 19:23

   « If you do not desist, I will surely banish you! » 19:46

   ↓ Ibrahim separates from them and from what they obey; in the next sura, young men do the same and reach the Cave.

Closing: Kaf Ha Ya ʿAyn Ṣad (19:1), then: "A remembrance of your Guardian's benevolence" (19:2).

← Summary frieze

1. 18

   The refugees of the Cave

   110 verses

   The section opens on a praise: "Praise be to God, who has sent down upon His obedient one the Scripture and placed in it no crookedness" (18:1). It comes to warn those who said: "God has taken a child." (18:4). The one who receives it wears himself out for them: "Perhaps you will consume yourself with bitterness, following after them" (18:6). The adornment of the earth is only a trial, and it will end as barren ground.

   First account, told "in truth" (18:13): young men refuse the deities of their people. They have neither strength nor place; they say to one another: "resort to the Cave: your Guardian will deploy over you some of His benevolence" (18:16). The camera enters with them: the sun veers away from their cave as it rises and grazes it as it sets; "And you would have thought them awake, while they were asleep." (18:18); their dog stays, paws stretched out, on the threshold.

   They are raised up and ask one another how long they have remained: "We have remained a day, or part of a day." (18:19). One of them goes down to the Capital with their money, in secret, for if they are discovered, they will be banished or made to re-enter the doctrine of the people. People come upon them and dispute: a building, or a place of prostration. About their number, he must say: "My Guardian knows best their number" (18:22), and never promise "I will do that tomorrow" (18:24) unless God wills.

   Then a command for him: "And hold yourself, with constancy, alongside those who call upon their Guardian morning and evening" (18:28), without seeking the adornment of the near life. The truth is spoken, without compulsion: "let whoever wants believe, and whoever wants disown." (18:29).

   An example of two men: one has two gardens of vines surrounded by palms and says to the other: "I have more goods than you, and am mightier in numbers." (18:34). He does not presume that the Hour will rise. His companion, who has fewer goods and children, reminds him who created him. His wealth is encompassed, and the rich man turns his palms over: "Would that I had associated no one with my Guardian!" (18:42).

   The near life passes like water, then like stubble scattered by the winds; "Goods and sons are the adornment of the near life" (18:46), and the lasting works are better. On the Day, the earth is laid bare, and the register set down omits nothing. The Agents prostrated before Adam, except Iblis: will you take him as an ally? The human being is, "more than anything, given to arguing" (18:54), and the unjust cities had their appointed time.

   Second account: Moussa wants to reach "the meeting-place of the two seas" (18:60) with his young companion. The forgotten fish takes its way into the sea, and it is there that they find an obedient one to whom God has taught a knowledge. He warns: "You will never be able to be patient with me." (18:67). He holes a boat, kills a young boy, then, in a city whose people refuse them food, "they refused to receive them as guests" (18:77), he sets upright a wall that wanted to topple.

   At the parting come the reasons. The boat "belonged to destitute people working at sea" (18:79), and a king was taking every boat by force. The boy would have overwhelmed his believing parents with immoderation. The wall "belonged to two orphan boys of the Capital, and beneath it was a treasure belonging to them" (18:82): their Guardian wants them to reach their full maturity and extract it themselves. The city that refuses hospitality is the one where the goods of its orphans are protected, without wages.

   Third account, on request: the Holder of the Two Acolytes, established on the earth, goes to the setting of the sun, then to its rising. Before a people, he lays down the rule: "As for the one who has done wrong, we shall punish him" (18:87), and for the one who does good, the finest. Between two barriers, a people without a common language offers him a tribute against Yajuj and Majuj, who "are sowing corruption on the earth" (18:94). He refuses the price, asks for strong arms, and builds the rampart of iron and naphtha: "This is a benevolence from my Guardian" (18:98).

   On the Day, some surge over others; those whose effort has gone astray still think they are doing well. If the sea were ink for the words of his Guardian, it would run out first. The sura brings him back to his measure: "I am only a human like you" (18:110), and the only door is a sound deed.

   « resort to the Cave: your Guardian will deploy over you some of His benevolence » 18:16

   « it belonged to two orphan boys of the Capital, and beneath it was a treasure belonging to them » 18:82

   « I am only a human like you » 18:110

   ↓ He is only a human; the next sura shows him traveling by night and has him answer: "Am I anything but a human, a messenger?" (17:93).

2. 17

   The night journey and the commands of wisdom

   111 verses

   The film opens at night: "Glory be to the One who made His obedient one travel by night, from the inviolable place of prostration to the farthest place of prostration" (17:1), to show him some of the signs. The traveler sets out from the House whose access is disputed to him, and goes toward a place whose surroundings have been blessed.

   Then the Scripture of Moussa, and a decree for the Sons of Israel: "You will surely sow corruption on the earth twice" (17:4). The first time, obedient ones endowed with severe rigor search through the dwellings; the turn is given back to them; the second time is announced. "If you do well, you do well for yourselves" (17:7). And this Recitation "indeed guides to what is most upright" (17:9).

   Each one is made answerable for his own omen, and on the Day a register opens: "Read your register: today, it suffices that you be your own reckoner." (17:14). Two rules of justice are laid down: "no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another" (17:15), and no punishment without a messenger sent first. When a city is to fall, it is its affluent who transgress.

   The commands fall, in the singular and to all. Toward parents growing old: not to say to them "fie!" (17:23), "and do not rebuke them" (17:23); lower for them the wing of docility. Give his due to the close relative, to the destitute and to "the passing traveler" (17:26), without squandering, without tying your hand nor stretching it out entirely.

   Then the prohibitions that protect the weakest: "And do not kill your children for dread of penury" (17:31); not to approach fornication; not to kill the inviolable Self, and if someone is killed wrongfully, his legal custodian has an authority, "but let him not be excessive in taking life" (17:33). "And do not approach the goods of the orphan, except in the most beautiful way, until he reaches his full maturity" (17:34), be faithful to the pact, give the right measure. "That is what your Guardian has revealed to you of wisdom." (17:39).

   When he reads, a separation is made: "And when you read the Recitation, We place between you and those who do not believe in the last life a hidden veil" (17:45). The wrongdoers whisper: "You follow none but a man abused by illusion." (17:47). They doubt that they will be raised, bones and fragments; he must answer: "He who originated you the first time." (17:51).

   He must tell the obedient ones "to say what is most beautiful" (17:53), for the Diverter sows discord; he is not their trustee. Iblis refuses to prostrate before the one God created from clay and threatens his descendants, with his voice, his cavalry, goods and children; the answer is clear: "Over My obedient ones, you indeed have no authority" (17:65). At sea, in harm, one invokes only Him; on land, one turns away. Yet "We have indeed honored the sons of Adam" (17:70).

   The shot tightens on him, threatened: they nearly turned him away from what is revealed to him, and "they have surely nearly shaken you out of this land, to expel you from it" (17:76). He receives the Contact, from the decline of the sun to the darkness of the night, the Recitation of dawn, the night vigil, and an exile's prayer: "My Guardian, cause me to enter by an entrance of veracity, and cause me to exit by an exit of veracity" (17:80). Then: "The truth has come, and falsehood has vanished" (17:81).

   They lay down their conditions: a spring gushing from the earth, a garden, the sky in pieces, a house of gilding, an ascent to the sky and a Scripture to read. His answer fits in one question: "Am I anything but a human, a messenger?" (17:93). Fir'awn too called Moussa abused by illusion, and "He then wanted to shake them out of that land" (17:103); he is drowned, and the Sons of Israel receive the order to dwell in the land.

   The Recitation comes down "with truth" (17:105), in fractions, so that he may read it to men by stages. Those who received knowledge before it fall prostrate, weeping. He must neither shout his Contact nor whisper it, and ends on praise: "Praise be to God, who has not taken a child" (17:111).

   « Glory be to the One who made His obedient one travel by night » 17:1

   « And do not approach the goods of the orphan, except in the most beautiful way, until he reaches his full maturity » 17:34

   « And they have surely nearly shaken you out of this land, to expel you from it » 17:76

   ↓ They nearly dislodged him from this land; the next sura promises the persecuted emigrants a fine position and orders him to seek refuge with God when he reads.

3. 16

   The command of God has come

   128 verses

   The first word is an arrival: "The command of God has come: so do not seek to hasten it." (16:1). The Agents come down with the Influx upon whom He wills, to warn that there is but one deity. The human being, created from a drop, "and behold, he is a declared quarreler." (16:4).

   Then the blessings pass before the camera, like a long list of what each one has at hand: the livestock that gives warmth and milk, brought home in the evening and led out to graze, that carries the loads "to a land you would not have reached except with great hardship on yourselves" (16:7); horses, mules, donkeys; the water of the sky, the olive tree, palms, vines; the sea, its fresh flesh and its ships; the stars to guide oneself. "And if you numbered God's blessing, you could not enumerate it." (16:18).

   Two answers to the same question, "What has your Guardian sent down?" (16:30). The proud say: "Legends of the ancients" (16:25), and the roof of those before fell upon them. Those who guard themselves say: "Something good." (16:30), and the Agents receive them: "Peace be upon you! Enter the Garden, for what you used to do." (16:32). Upon the messenger is only the explicit transmission.

   In the middle of the sura, the exiles: "And those who emigrated for God, after having been wronged, We shall surely settle them in a fine position in the near life" (16:41), those who were patient and entrust themselves to their Guardian. The Reminder is sent down to him "so that you may make clear to mankind what has been sent down to them" (16:44).

   The shadows bend, prostrate; everything prostrates without swelling with pride. Then a household scene: daughters are assigned to God, and "when one of them receives the news of a daughter, his face stays darkened" (16:58). He hides from the people and hesitates: "shall he retain her despite the degradation, or bury her in the ground?" (16:59). The judgment falls: "How evil is what they decide!" (16:59).

   The purified milk of the livestock, the bee that takes houses in the mountains and from which comes forth a drink "in which there is healing for mankind" (16:69). Two examples of inequality: the enslaved one without power and the one who spends secretly; the mute one who is a burden and "one who commands justice and stands upon a straight path" (16:76). The fixed houses, the light tents of hide on the day of departure, the shadows, the shelters of the mountains.

   On the Day, each community will have its witness, and he will be brought "as a witness against these" (16:89). Then the sentence that holds the city together: "God commands justice, beneficence, and giving to the close relative" (16:90), and He forbids indecency, what is disavowed, and iniquity.

   Peace between communities is played out on oaths: "And be faithful to God's pact when you make a pact" (16:91). Do not be like her who unravels her thread after having firmly spun it: "you take your oaths as a means of deceit among yourselves, on the pretext that one community is more numerous than another" (16:92). Whoever does a sound deed, "male or female" (16:97), will live a wholesome life.

   Then the command addressed to the reader: "When you read the Recitation, seek refuge with God from the banished Diverter" (16:98), who has no authority over those who believe. He is accused of inventing, and of getting his Recitation from a human. The one who was coerced into disowning, his core calm in faith, is excepted; and those "who emigrated after having been tried, then strove and were patient" (16:110) find their Guardian Most-Forgiving.

   An example on the threshold of the city: "a city that was secure, calm, to which its provision came with ease from everywhere" (16:112), disowns the blessings and tastes the garment of hunger and fear. The lawful and the wholesome are restored; Ibrahim, grateful, is shown, and the command comes: "Follow the doctrine of Ibrahim, wholly turned toward God" (16:123).

   The end gives the conduct: "Call to the way of your Guardian with wisdom and fine admonition" (16:125). Retaliation has its limit: "pay back to the exact measure of what was done to you" (16:126), and patience is better. And be patient: "yet your patience rests only in God." (16:127).

   « And those who emigrated for God, after having been wronged, We shall surely settle them in a fine position in the near life » 16:41

   « God commands justice, beneficence, and giving to the close relative » 16:90

   « When you read the Recitation, seek refuge with God from the banished Diverter » 16:98

   ↓ He seeks refuge with God from the banished Diverter; the next sura shows how the Diverter was banished, and the Reminder preserved.

4. 15

   The preserved Reminder

   99 verses · label الر

   Alif Lam Ra, then: "These are the signs of the Scripture, and of a clear Recitation." (15:1). Those who disown would wish they had been true to God alone; he is told to let them eat and enjoy, "they will soon know." (15:3). Each city annihilated had its known register.

   He is challenged with contempt: "O you upon whom the Reminder has been sent down, you are surely deranged!" (15:7), and they demand Agents of him. The answer does not come from him: "It is We who have sent down the Reminder," (15:9) "and We are surely its preservers." (15:9). The messengers before were all mocked; a door opened in the sky would change nothing.

   The camera rises: constellations adorned and guarded against every banished Diverter, the earth spread out, the anchors, everything weighed, means of livelihood even for those "whose providers you are not." (15:20). Everything is sent down "only according to a known measure." (15:21), the winds fecundate, the water gives drink.

   Then the origin: the human from resonant clay, the Occulted from a fire of torrid wind. All the Agents prostrate, except Iblis: "It is not for me to prostrate before a human You created from resonant clay" (15:33). Banished, he obtains a respite and promises to embellish everything on the earth to make them err, except the purified obedient ones. He is answered: "Over My obedient ones, you indeed have no authority" (15:42).

   Those who guarded themselves enter gardens and springs: "Enter therein in peace, in security." (15:46). Rancor is removed from their breasts, they are brothers, facing one another, and "they will never be expelled from it." (15:48). To people threatened with expulsion, the promised abode is the one from which no one leaves.

   Then guests. They enter upon Ibrahim saying "Peace!" (15:52), and he trembles. They announce to him a knowing boy; he objects his great age and hears: "so do not be among those who lose heart." (15:55). He answers: "And who loses heart regarding his Guardian's benevolence, except the astray?" (15:56). The envoys go toward a severed people; the clan of Lut will be saved, except his wife.

   At Lut's, the order is that of a flight: "So depart with your family, at a time of the night" (15:65), without turning around. The people of the Capital arrive, exulting, and Lut places himself between them and those he receives: "These are my guests: do not dishonor me," (15:68). The Cry seizes them at sunrise; the city is overturned, and it remains on a road that still exists. The companions of the Thicket, then those of al-Hijr, who carved houses in the mountains "in complete security." (15:82), are seized in their turn.

   The Hour is coming; the order is without violence: "so turn the page, with a gracious gesture," (15:85). He has received seven of the couplets and the immense Recitation; let him not look at what others enjoy, "and lower your wing for the believers." (15:88). He must proclaim openly what he is commanded; God knows that his chest tightens, and he must obey his Guardian "until certainty comes to you." (15:99).

   « It is We who have sent down the Reminder, » 15:9

   « These are my guests: do not dishonor me, » 15:68

   « and lower your wing for the believers. » 15:88

   ↓ Iblis has no authority over the obedient ones; in the next sura, the Diverter admits it himself on the Day.

5. 14

   Ibrahim near the House

   52 verses · label الر

   Alif Lam Ra, then the mission: "so that you may bring mankind out of the darknesses into the light, with the permission of their Guardian" (14:1). Woe to those who love the near life, "who bar from God's way and seek to make it crooked" (14:3). Each messenger speaks the language of his people.

   Moussa received the same order and reminds his people of what they endured: the clan of Fir'awn was crushing them, "slaughtering your sons and violating the modesty of your women" (14:6). Then the rule: "If you are grateful, I shall surely increase you" (14:7).

   The peoples before, Nuh, the Aad, the Thamud and others whom God alone knows, bring their hands back to their mouths. They say: "You are only humans like us" (14:10). The messengers answer: "We are only humans like you, but God graces whom He wills among His obedient ones." (14:11), and promise to be patient.

   Then comes the threat of the masters of the land: "We shall surely expel you from our land, or you will re-enter our doctrine!" (14:13). The answer is given to the threatened: "We shall surely make you dwell in this land after them." (14:14). The obstinate tyrant fails, and the works of those who disown are like ashes that a stormy wind whirls about.

   On the Day, the weak turn to those who swelled with pride: "We were indeed your followers" (14:21); there is no escape. The Diverter admits: "I had no authority over you, except to call you, and you answered me." (14:22). Those who believed greet one another with a single word: "Peace!" (14:23).

   An example: "A wholesome word is like a wholesome tree, whose root is firm and whose branches are in the sky" (14:24), and the vile word, a tree uprooted without stability. Those who changed God's blessing into disowning have lodged their people in the abode of perdition. To the believers, the order: maintain the Contact and spend, "secretly and openly" (14:31), before the day without selling or friendship.

   Then the shot on the House. Ibrahim asks: "My Guardian, make this land secure" (14:35). He has left part of his own there: "I have made part of my descendants dwell in a valley without cultivation, near Your House made inviolable" (14:37). He asks that Consciences, among men, incline toward them, and that they be provided with fruits. He praises God for Isma'il and Ishaq, received despite great age, and asks forgiveness for himself, his two parents and the believers.

   Let no one think God heedless of the wrongdoers: He defers them until the day when sights will stare fixed. They dwelt in the dwellings of those who were wrongdoers before them, and their plot is with God. The earth will be changed into another earth, and the sura closes: "This is a transmission for mankind" (14:52).

   « We shall surely expel you from our land, or you will re-enter our doctrine! » 14:13

   « We shall surely make you dwell in this land after them. » 14:14

   « I have made part of my descendants dwell in a valley without cultivation, near Your House made inviolable » 14:37

   ↓ Ibrahim asks fruits for his own and forgiveness for his parents; the next sura shows the possessors of intelligence entering the Garden with their parents, their spouses and their descendants.

6. 13

   The froth goes off

   43 verses · label المر

   Alif Lam Mim Ra, then: "These are the signs of the Scripture." (13:1), and what is sent down to him is the truth, even if most do not believe. The camera travels across the heavens without visible pillars, the sun and the moon toward their term, the earth spread out, and those neighboring plots "irrigated by the same water" (13:4) that do not yield the same fare.

   Their saying astonishes him: "When we are earth, shall we really be in a new creation?" (13:5). They ask him to hasten the evil, and demand: "Why has a sign not been sent down upon him from his Guardian!" (13:7). He hears his rightful place: "You are, yourself, only a warner," (13:7) and to every people belongs a guide.

   God knows what every female carries and what the wombs absorb. Each one has watchers who take turns to preserve him. Then the law of peoples: "God indeed does not change what is in a people until they change what is in themselves" (13:11).

   The lightning, feared and hoped for; the thunder that glorifies; those invoked besides Him do not answer, as when one stretches one's palms toward the water without it reaching the mouth. He must ask the questions: who is the Guardian of the heavens and the earth? "Are the blind and the seeing equal?" (13:16). Then the image of the flood: a water comes down, the valleys overflow, a froth swells; "the froth goes off as scum," (13:17) "while what is useful to men remains on the earth." (13:17).

   Only the possessors of intelligence remember: "those who are faithful to God's pact and do not break the solemn engagement" (13:20), who join what must be joined, patient, who spend and "push back evil with good." (13:22). They enter the Gardens "along with those who were sound among their parents, their spouses, and their descendants" (13:23), and the Agents enter by every gate: "Peace be upon you, because you were patient!" (13:24).

   Facing them, those who break the pact, cut off what must be joined "and sow corruption on the earth" (13:25). He is asked again for a sign; he answers that God guides whoever turns to Him, and that those who believe are those "whose cores are calmed by the remembrance of God." (13:28).

   He is sent to a community to recite what is revealed to him, and he must say: "to Him I entrust myself, and to Him goes my repentance." (13:30). Even a Recitation that moved the mountains would force no one: the command belongs entirely to God. The messengers before were mocked; a delay, then the seizure.

   Those who received the Scripture rejoice in what is sent down to him; factions disavow part of it. The messengers before had "spouses and descendants" (13:38), and none brings a sign without permission. The end unburdens him: "only the transmission is incumbent upon you, and the reckoning belongs to Us." (13:40). To "You are not sent." (13:43), he answers that God suffices as witness.

   « You are, yourself, only a warner, » 13:7

   « God indeed does not change what is in a people until they change what is in themselves » 13:11

   « only the transmission is incumbent upon you, and the reckoning belongs to Us. » 13:40

   ↓ The just enter with their parents and their descendants; the next sura tells of a son separated from his own, who brings them in to him.

7. 12

   The most beautiful of accounts

   111 verses · label الر

   Alif Lam Ra, then the announcement of the film: "We relate to you the most beautiful of accounts" (12:3), to him who was heedless of it. A child speaks to his father: "O my father, I saw eleven heavenly bodies, and the sun and the moon," (12:4) prostrating before him. The father protects him: "O my little one, do not relate your vision to your brothers, or they will scheme against you with a scheme," (12:5).

   The brothers band together: "Kill Youssof, or deport him to some land" (12:9). One of them proposes the well. They tear the child from the father who fears the wolf; at the bottom of the well, God reveals to him that one day he will inform them of this affair. In the evening, they come back weeping, with "his shirt stained with lying blood." (12:18). The father answers: "Gracious patience!" (12:18).

   A caravan passes, the water-drawer pulls up a boy; he is hidden like merchandise, then "they sold him for a docked price, a few numbered coins" (12:20). The sold child becomes an exile: in Misr, the buyer tells his wife to make his stay honorable, perhaps they will adopt him. At his full maturity, he receives judgment and knowledge.

   In the house, the woman with whom he lives seeks to obtain him from himself and bolts the doors; he answers: "Refuge in God!" (12:23). The shirt torn from behind clears him, but the women of the Capital talk about it; invited, they cut their hands on seeing him. Threatened with prison, he chooses: "My Guardian, prison is dearer to me than what they call me to" (12:33). He is imprisoned though innocent.

   In prison, two young men confide their visions to him. Before answering, he says where he speaks from: "I have followed the doctrine of my ancestors, Ibrahim, Ishaq, and Yaacoub:" (12:38), and asks: "are divided masters better, or God, the One, the Subjugator?" (12:39). One will give his master drink, the other will be fixed to the stake. The one who should remind of him forgets, and Youssof remains some years in prison.

   The king sees seven fat cows devoured by seven lean ones; his court sees in it only confused dreams. Youssof gives a plan against the famine: seven years of cultivation in which one stores, seven severe years, then a year of rain. Called by the king, he first has the women who cut their hands questioned, and the wife of the Powerful One confesses: "Now the truth breaks out: it is I who sought to obtain him from himself, and he is surely among the veracious." (12:51). He then asks: "Place me in charge of the treasuries of this land, for I am a knowledgeable preserver." (12:55).

   Famine drives his brothers toward him; he recognizes them, they do not know him. He gives the measure faithfully, calls himself "the best of hosts" (12:59), and puts their merchandise back in their saddlebags. The father gives up his other son only against a solemn engagement before God. Youssof takes in his brother: "I am, indeed, your brother: so do not grieve over what they were doing." (12:69). The cup in the saddlebag allows him to keep him, without departing from the king's law.

   The father, deprived of two sons, says again "Gracious patience!" (12:83); his eyes whiten with grief, and he complains only to God. He sends his sons to inquire: "do not lose hope of God's rest," (12:87). The brothers come back, touched by harm, and ask for the measure and for charity.

   The recognition: "Is it really you, Youssof?" (12:90). He does not take revenge: "No reproach upon you:" (12:92) "today, God forgives you," (12:92). His shirt restores the father's sight. The family arrives, and the exile becomes the one who receives: "he took his father and mother in with him" (12:99), and said: "Enter Misr, if God wills, in security." (12:99).

   The text turns to him: he was not with them; he asks no reward. He must say: "This is my way: I call to God." (12:108). The messengers before were men of the cities, and when they had lost all hope, help came. The account is not invented: it is "the confirmation of what precedes it, the detail of everything" (12:111).

   « We relate to you the most beautiful of accounts » 12:3

   « And they sold him for a docked price, a few numbered coins » 12:20

   « he took his father and mother in with him » 12:99

   ↓ Help comes to the messengers when they have lost hope; the next sura unrolls its cases, from Nuh to Moussa.

8. 11

   The same word, messenger after messenger

   123 verses · label الر

   Alif Lam Ra, then a Scripture whose signs have been made univocal, then detailed, and the word he carries, in few words: "Obey none but God; I am for you, from Him, a warner and a bearer of good tidings" (11:3), ask forgiveness, then turn back to Him. Every creature that moves has its provision with God, and "everything is in an explicit register." (11:6).

   The human being, deprived of a benevolence, despairs; heaped with favors, he becomes "joyful, boastful." (11:10). The text sees the one who transmits on the point of giving way: "Perhaps you will leave part of what is revealed to you, and your chest will tighten because of it" (11:12), because they demand a treasure or an Agent. He is accused of having invented it; he must answer: "Then bring ten invented surahs like it" (11:13). Before him, the Scripture of Moussa, "as a reference and a benevolence." (11:17).

   First messenger: Nuh. The court answers with class contempt: "We see you only as a human like us, and we see that only those who are, among us, the lowliest, followed you" (11:27). Nuh refuses to drive away the weak: "And I am not of those who chase away those who believe" (11:29), and does not say of those whom their eyes despise that God will grant them no good. He compels no one: "shall we impose it upon you while you are averse to it?" (11:28).

   He receives the order: "And craft the vessel, under Our eyes and by Our revelation," (11:37). The notables pass by and mock. The furnace boils; two of every pair, his family, those who believed, and they are few. The vessel sails "amid waves like mountains." (11:42). Nuh calls to his son who stayed apart: "O my little one, embark with us" (11:42). The son thinks he will find refuge on a mountain; the waves come between them.

   The earth gulps its water, the vessel establishes itself on al-Judi. Nuh pleads for his son and hears: "he is indeed not of your family," (11:46) "for he is a work that is unsound." (11:46). He descends "with a peace from Us" (11:48). To the messenger it is said: you did not know these pieces of information; "So be patient," (11:49).

   Hud says to the Aad the same word, without asking for a wage, and defies them alone: "so scheme against me all together, and grant me no delay," (11:55). The Aad followed "the command of every obstinate tyrant." (11:59). Salih shows the Thamud the she-camel of God: "that she may eat on God's earth," (11:64). They maim her; the Cry leaves them lying in their dwellings.

   Messengers enter upon Ibrahim: "Peace!" (11:69), and he at once brings a roasted calf. His wife, standing, laughs, and receives the good tidings of Ishaq then of Yaacoub: "Shall I bear a child, when I am old" (11:72). Ibrahim argues for the people of Lut, but the command has already come.

   At Lut's, his people rush in. He stands in their way: "do not disgrace me concerning my guests:" (11:78) "is there not among you a well-advised man?" (11:78). Alone and without strength, he says: "Would that I had some strength against you, or could resort to a strong support!" (11:80). The order is to leave by night; the city is overturned, "and it is not far from the wrongdoers." (11:83).

   Shu'ayb speaks to Madyan of commercial justice: "give the measure and the balance faithfully, with equity," (11:85) "and do not shortchange men in their things" (11:85). He is asked whether his Contact prevents them from doing with their goods as they please; he answers: "I only want to make things sound, as much as I can;" (11:88). He is called weak and protected only by his kin. The Cry seizes them as it seized the Thamud. Moussa comes to Fir'awn, who will lead his people to the Fire.

   Such are the pieces of information about the cities, some standing, others mown down: God did not wrong them. On the Day, no Self speaks without His permission. Then the order: "So stand straight, as you have been commanded, and those who have turned back with you, and do not exceed the measure," (11:112), and do not lean on the wrongdoers; maintain the Contact at the two ends of the day.

   The text regrets that there were so few, in past generations, "possessors of a remnant who forbade corruption on earth" (11:116), and lays down: God does not annihilate the cities wrongfully "while their inhabitants make things sound." (11:117). All these accounts are told for a reason: "that by which We make your Conscience firm;" (11:120). He must say: act, and wait.

   « And I am not of those who chase away those who believe » 11:29

   « give the measure and the balance faithfully, with equity, » 11:85

   « And all that We relate to you of the pieces of information about the messengers is that by which We make your Conscience firm; » 11:120

   ↓ He had to answer: bring ten surahs; the next sura brings the challenge down to a single one.

9. 10

   Following what is revealed

   109 verses · label الر

   Alif Lam Ra closes the section, then: "These are the signs of the Scripture full of wisdom." (10:1). What astonishes men is that a man among them should receive the order: "Warn mankind," (10:2). The Guardian created in six days, made the sun a brightness and the moon a light with fixed stations, and He remakes creation "so as to recompense with equity those who believed" (10:4). Those who believed will have as greeting: "Peace" (10:10).

   The human being in harm invokes lying down, sitting, standing; relieved, he goes his way. The generations before were annihilated for their wrongdoing, and the listeners are put in their place: "Then We made you successors on the earth, after them, so as to look at how you would act." (10:14).

   The central scene: he is asked for another Recitation. "Bring a Recitation other than this one, or change it." (10:15). He answers: "It is not for me to change it of my own accord;" (10:15) "I only follow what is revealed to me." (10:15). And he reminds them who he is for them: "I remained among you a whole lifetime before it, after all." (10:16).

   They take intercessors who neither harm nor benefit. Men were but a single community, then they diverged. To those who demand a sign, he must say: "So wait," (10:20). At sea, with a good wind then in the storm, they invoke God alone; saved, they start again: "there they are, committing iniquity on earth, without right." (10:23), and iniquity falls back only on themselves.

   The near life is a land adorned by water, whose people think themselves its masters, mown down in a night. Facing it, the call: "God calls to the Abode of Peace," (10:25). On the Day, the associates disown those who served them. He must ask who provides, who brings forth the living from the dead, who guides to the truth.

   This Recitation could not have been invented: "rather, it confirms what precedes it, and it details the Scripture" (10:37). To those who say he invented it: "Bring then a surah like it," (10:38). If they deny him, he separates without violence: "To me my work, and to you your work; you are quit of what I do, and I am quit of what you do." (10:41). God wrongs men in nothing.

   They ask when the promise is due; he possesses neither harm nor benefit, and "To every community a term." (10:49). An admonition has come, "a healing for what is in the chests" (10:57). To the allies of God, no fear; to him: "And let not their saying grieve you:" (10:65).

   He must recite Nuh, who defies his people to do to him what they will, then Moussa and Harun facing Fir'awn and his court. The workers of illusion throw; Moussa says: "God will render it vain," (10:81). Only descendants of his people believe him, "in fear of Fir'awn and their court, lest he try them." (10:83); they ask not to be a trial for the wrongdoing people.

   For a persecuted people, the order is first to settle: "Set up houses for your people in Misr; make your houses a rallying point; and maintain the Contact;" (10:87). Then the sea is crossed, Fir'awn pursues them "in iniquity and hostility," (10:90), and says he believes when drowning overtakes him. He hears: "Now?! When you disobeyed before, and were among the corrupters!" (10:91). The Sons of Israel are settled "in a true dwelling" (10:93).

   A single city believed in time, the people of Younes. Then the sentence that bounds his mission: "Is it you who would compel men to become believers?" (10:99). He finally tells men that he is not their trustee, and receives the order that closes the section: "And follow what is revealed to you, and be patient until God judges." (10:109).

   « It is not for me to change it of my own accord; » 10:15

   « you are quit of what I do, and I am quit of what you do. » 10:41

   « Is it you who would compel men to become believers? » 10:99

   ↓ He declares himself quit of what they do; the next sura opens on the quittance of God and His messenger.

Closing: Alif Lam Ra (10:1), then: "These are the signs of the Scripture full of wisdom" (10:1).

← Summary frieze

1. 9

   The quittance and the notice

   129 verses

   The section opens without the usual opening formula, on an announced rupture: "Quittance, from God and His messenger, toward those of the associators with whom you had made a pact." (9:1). It is not an attack, it is a notice: "So move about freely in the land for four months," (9:2). The proclamation is made to men "on the Great Day of the Hajj" (9:3), and the door remains open: "So if you turn back, that is better for you;" (9:3).

   One exception holds from the start: those who have failed you in nothing and supported no one against you, "complete their pact toward them until its term," (9:4). Then, only after the notice, the engagement of combat, once the four months during which hunting and combat are suspended have passed: "When the inviolable months have run out, kill the associators wherever you find them" (9:5). Combat ceases as soon as they turn back and maintain the Contact: "then leave their way clear," (9:5).

   In the very heart of war, asylum: "And if one of the associators asks you for asylum, grant him asylum, until he hears the word of God, then convey him to his place of safety." (9:6). The enemy who asks for protection is received, listens, then is escorted back in safety. Those of the pact concluded near the inviolable place of prostration keep their right: "As long as they stand straight with you, stand straight with them," (9:7).

   Who is targeted, then? Those of whom it is said: "They respect, toward a believer, neither kinship nor surety." (9:10), and the text names them: "And those are the aggressors." (9:10). The question is put to the believers: "Will you then not fight a people who violated their oaths, who were minded to expel the messenger, and who attacked you first?" (9:13). If they turn back, "they are your brothers in the Law." (9:11).

   The House is at stake. The places of prostration belong only to whoever believes and maintains the Contact; and the keeping of the House is not worth faith: "Would you make the giving of drink to those performing the Hajj and the populating of the inviolable place of prostration equivalent to one who has believed in God" (9:19). Those who believed, emigrated and strove have a more immense degree. If fathers, sons, spouses, goods and dwellings are dearer than God, "then bide your time" (9:24). The House is taken back: "Only he populates the places of prostration of God who has believed in God and the Last Day" (9:18), and the associators must no longer approach the inviolable place of prostration "after this year of theirs" (9:28). It is the fulfillment, shown by its consequences, of the return promised in 28:85 and in 48:27.

   A memory of battle: on the day of Hunayn, great numbers dazzle and avail nothing, "and the earth, despite its vastness, became narrow for you" (9:25). Then tranquility descends, with "armies you did not see" (9:26). The aggressors will no longer approach the inviolable place of prostration "after this year of theirs." (9:28).

   Combat also against those, among the people of the Scripture, who do not conform to the Law of truth, "until they pay the war indemnity" (9:29): the reparations that close a conflict, like those imposed on a vanquished party. Al-'Uzayr and Al-Massih were called sons of God, scholars of the pen and reverends taken as masters; they want to extinguish the light of God. The Law of truth is sent "so as to make it prevail over every law" (9:33). And an injustice is named: many scholars of the pen and reverends "surely devour the goods of men through falsehood" (9:34), and hoarded gold will burn those who keep it.

   The calendar is set: twelve months in God's Code, four of them inviolable, and "So do not wrong yourselves during these." (9:36). Combat follows theirs, month for month: "And fight the associators throughout all the months, as they fight you throughout all the months," (9:36). The deferred, which shifts the inviolable, is only an increase in disowning.

   Then comes the call to mobilize, with the reminder of the messenger's exile, expelled, "the second of two, when they were both in the cave" (9:40), who says to his companion: "Do not grieve, God is indeed with us." (9:40). It is the same forced departure as that of "your city which expelled you" (47:13), seen a second time.

   The mobilization sorts them out. For a near gain, some would have followed; they swear they would have gone out. He receives a reproach: "God has overlooked it for you: why did you give them permission" (9:43). One says: "do not expose me to the trial." (9:49). Others disparage him about the acts of charity, and the law of charity is fixed: to the poor, the destitute, the pledges, the indebted, "and the passing traveler" (9:60). They call him all ear: "An ear of good for you" (9:61).

   Two portraits face each other. The hypocrites, men and women, command what is disavowed and close their hands; "And the believers, men and women, are allies of one another:" (9:71). The peoples before, from Nuh to the overturned cities, are recalled. The one who had promised to give if he were enriched becomes miserly; those who scoff at "those who have only their effort to give" (9:79) are scoffed at in their turn.

   Those who were left behind rejoice at having stayed seated and say: "Do not mobilize in the heat." (9:81). He must answer: "You will never go out with me" (9:83). But the law spares those who cannot: "There is no discomfort for the weak, nor for the sick, nor for those who find nothing to spend" (9:91), nor for those he cannot carry, who go back "their eyes overflowing with tears" (9:92).

   Around him, notables more hardened; others who take their spending for a nearness. The very first forerunners, "among the emigrants and the Auxiliaries" (9:100), have His good pleasure. In the Capital, hypocrites whom he does not know. He must take from their goods a charity that purifies them, and not maintain himself in a place of prostration taken "to harm" (9:107), built on the edge of a ravine.

   God has bought from the believers their Selves and their goods, a promise inscribed "in the Tawrah, the Injil, and this Recitation." (9:111). Ibrahim himself declared himself quit of his father, an enemy of God. God turns back toward the emigrants and the Auxiliaries, and toward the three left behind, when "the earth had become narrow for them despite its vastness" (9:118). Not all set out: a group from each faction deepens its understanding of the Law and warns its own on return.

   The end shows the one who transmits: "A messenger has indeed come to you, from among yourselves; it is grievous to him that you should be overwhelmed," (9:128). If they turn their backs, a single sentence: "God suffices me;" (9:129).

   « So move about freely in the land for four months, » 9:2

   « And if one of the associators asks you for asylum, grant him asylum, until he hears the word of God, then convey him to his place of safety. » 9:6

   « God suffices me; » 9:129

   ↓ He says that God suffices him; in the next sura, it is God who tells him so, in the account of the day of the Discernment.

2. 8

   The day of the Discernment

   75 verses

   He is questioned about the surpluses, and the answer begins with inner peace: "So guard yourselves toward God, and make sound what is between you," (8:1). The true believers are those whose cores tremble when God is mentioned, who maintain the Contact and spend.

   Then the account, addressed to him: "your Guardian brought you out of your house in truth" (8:5), while a part of the believers advanced "as if they were being driven toward death" (8:6). They were promised one of the two groups; they wanted "the one without arms." (8:7). God wanted something else: to make the truth true and the false vain.

   They call for rescue; the answer: "I reinforce you with a thousand Agents, following one another." (8:9), but "help comes only from God," (8:10). Drowsiness overtakes them "as a security from Himself" (8:11), water comes down from the sky to make their steps firm, and it is revealed to the Agents: "I am with you; so make firm those who have believed." (8:12).

   The order to the believers: not to turn their backs in the encounter, except to maneuver or regroup. Then the act is taken away from them: "So it was not you who killed them," (8:17), and from him: "And you did not throw, when you threw, but it was God who threw," (8:17). To those opposite, a door: "and if you cease, it will be better for you;" (8:19).

   One must respond to the messenger "when he calls you to what gives you life," (8:24). The community sees itself as it was: "when you were few, reduced to weakness on the earth, fearing that men would snatch you away; He then took you in" (8:26). Not to betray trusts; goods and children are a trial; guardedness gives a Discernment.

   The plot is recalled to him: "to immobilize you, kill you, or expel you." (8:30). Those who disowned held the House without having the right: "while they bar from the inviolable place of prostration, without even being its custodians?" (8:34). And the text judges their keeping: "And their Contact, near the House, was nothing but a tumult and a barring." (8:35). They spend their goods to bar.

   Even then, the offer of peace comes first: "if they cease, what is already bygone will be forgiven them;" (8:38). Combat has an aim and a limit: "until there is no more trial, and the Law is entirely for God." (8:39), and "if they cease" (8:39), it stops.

   The rule of the spoils protects the weakest: a fifth goes "to the messenger, to relatives, to orphans, to the destitute, and to the passing traveler" (8:41), in the name of what was sent down "on the day of the Discernment, the day the two forces met." (8:41). The camera shows the ground: they on the farthest side, the believers on the nearest, the riders lower down. In his sleep, God showed them to him as few, and each camp seemed few to the other.

   Facing the battalion: hold firm, remember God, "and do not dispute among yourselves" (8:46), do not go out in elation like those opposite. The Diverter had called himself for them "a neighbor who grants asylum" (8:48); when the two battalions see each other, he steps back: "I am indeed quit of you; I see what you do not see; I fear God." (8:48). The clan of Fir'awn was seized in the same way; and God changes a blessing only after a people has changed what is in itself.

   The law of pacts: the worst are those who, "every time, break their pact" (8:56). If betrayal is feared, "denounce toward them, on equal terms," (8:58). Prepare strength, to deter. Then the sentence that commands everything: "And if they incline toward peace, incline toward it also, and entrust yourself to God," (8:61), even at the risk of being deceived: "And if they want to deceive you, then God suffices you." (8:62).

   It is God who reconciled their cores, which all the goods of the earth could not have done. "O Informant! God suffices you," (8:64). Twenty who are patient will overcome two hundred; then God lightens, knowing "that there was weakness in you." (8:66). The captives must not be an end: he must tell them that if God knows any good in their cores, "He will give you better than what was taken from you" (8:70).

   The sura closes on the law of refugees: those who emigrated and strove, "and those who took them in and helped — those are allies of one another." (8:72). The one who did not emigrate is not their charge; but "if they ask you for help in the name of the Law, help is incumbent upon you, except against a people between whom and you there is a solemn engagement." (8:72). Without this alliance, "great corruption." (8:73). Those who emigrate later "are among you." (8:75).

   « reduced to weakness on the earth, fearing that men would snatch you away; He then took you in » 8:26

   « And if they incline toward peace, incline toward it also, and entrust yourself to God, » 8:61

   « and those who took them in and helped — those are allies of one another. » 8:72

   ↓ The Diverter calls himself a neighbor who grants asylum then steps back; the next sura shows him swearing to lie in wait on the path of the sons of Adam.

3. 7

   From Adam to the Tablets of Moussa

   206 verses · label المص

   Alif Lam Mim Ṣad closes the section, then: "A Scripture has been sent down to you — let there be no discomfort in your chest because of it — so that you may warn by it, and a reminder for the believers." (7:2). Annihilated cities rise up, by night or during the siesta, whose only cry was: "We have indeed been wrongdoers." (7:5). On the Day, envoys and recipients are questioned, "And the weighing, on that day, will be the truth." (7:8).

   The origin. The Agents prostrate before Adam, except Iblis: "I am better than him: You created me from fire, and You created him from clay." (7:12). Brought low, he obtains a respite and swears: "I will surely sit in wait for them on Your straight path" (7:17), from before, from behind, from the right and from the left.

   Adam and his spouse dwell in the Garden, with a single prohibition. The Diverter whispers to them that they would become two kings or eternal, and swears to them that he is advising them. Their nakedness appears to them; they sew leaves together. Both say: "Our Guardian, we have wronged ourselves" (7:23). They are sent onto the earth: "There you will live, there you will die, and from there you will be brought forth." (7:25).

   The text turns to the sons of Adam: a garment covers their nakedness, and "the garment of guardedness" (7:26) is better. Those who commit an indecency say God ordered it; he must answer: "My Guardian has ordered equity." (7:29), eat and drink without waste, and: "My Guardian has prohibited only indecencies, uncovered or hidden, transgression, iniquity without right" (7:33). To every community a term.

   Then the hereafter in a wide shot. In the Fire, each community curses its sister; those who denied will enter the Garden only when the camel passes through the eye of the needle. In the Garden, rancor is removed from the breasts, and one hears: "This is the Garden which you have inherited, for what you used to do." (7:43). A herald curses the wrongdoers "who bar from the way of God" (7:45). Between the two, a veil; on the Heights, men greet: "Peace be upon you" (7:46). The Fire asks the Garden for water.

   A detailed Scripture has been brought to them; do they await only its fulfillment? The Guardian created in six days, and covers the day with the night. "Invoke your Guardian, beseechingly and covertly," (7:55) and a rule for the earth: "And do not sow corruption on the earth after its being made sound," (7:56). The winds drive the clouds toward a dead land, and the fruits come forth from it: thus will the dead come forth.

   The peoples come, with the same sentence: "Obey God: you have no other deity than Him" (7:59). Nuh, called astray, is saved in the vessel. Hud, called foolish, says to the Aad: "Wait then, for I am, with you, among those who wait." (7:71). Among the Thamud, the proud court questions those "who had been reduced to weakness" (7:75); they maim the she-camel, and the tremor seizes them.

   Lut reproaches his people for their indecency; their only answer is expulsion: "Expel them from your city;" (7:82). Shu'ayb asks Madyan for the measure and the balance, and not to shortchange people in their things; he reproaches them for lying in wait on every path to bar the way, and reminds them "that you were few, and He made you many." (7:86). The threat returns: "We will surely expel you from our city, O Shu'ayb, you and those who have believed with you" (7:88). He asks: "Our Guardian, open between us and our people, in truth:" (7:89).

   The rule of the cities is stated: adversity, then ease, then the seizure unawares; "None feels secure from God's plot, except the people of the losers." (7:99). And an observation: "And We found, in most of them, no pact kept;" (7:102).

   Moussa comes to Fir'awn with a demand for release: "so let the Sons of Israel go with me." (7:105). The staff becomes a serpent, the hand comes out white; the court accuses him of wanting to drive them out of their land. The workers of illusion throw, the staff swallows what they were faking, and they fall prostrate. Fir'awn threatens to cut off their hands and feet; they answer: "Our Guardian, inundate us with patience" (7:126).

   The court pushes Fir'awn, and he announces: "We will massacre their sons and violate the modesty of their women" (7:127). Moussa says to his people: "Seek help in God, and be patient;" (7:128). The years of scarcity, the flood, the locusts, the lice, the frogs and the blood; Fir'awn promises to let them go, then goes back on his word, and he is drowned. The oppressed inherit: "And We made the people who had been reduced to weakness inherit the risings and the settings of the land which We had blessed." (7:137).

   After the sea, the people demand a deity like those of others. Moussa leaves for forty nights and entrusts his people to Harun: "make things sound, and do not follow the way of the corrupters." (7:142). He asks to see his Guardian; the mountain is leveled, he falls thunderstruck. He receives the Tablets, "an admonition concerning all things, and a detail of all things." (7:145). Below, the people have taken a calf that lows. Moussa returns in anger, throws down the Tablets, pulls his brother by the head, who says: "The people indeed reduced me to weakness, and almost killed me" (7:150).

   His anger calmed, he takes up the Tablets again. With seventy men seized by the tremor, he pleads: "Would You annihilate us for what the foolish among us have done?" (7:155). The answer: "and My benevolence embraces all things." (7:156). It is inscribed for those who follow the Informant without a prior Scripture, who "lifts from them their yoke and the shackles that were upon them." (7:157). He must say: "O mankind! I am indeed the messenger of God to all of you" (7:158).

   The people of Moussa have their community that, "by it, acts with justice." (7:159). Twelve bloodlines, twelve springs, the cloud, manna and quails; the city near the sea and the Rest, where those who forbade evil are saved. A posterity inherits the Scripture and takes the ephemeral goods; the mountain is raised above them. The sons of Adam bear witness in advance: "Yes, we bear witness!" (7:172), and the man who stripped himself of the signs pants like the dog.

   The end brings him back to his measure. Asked about the Hour, he must say: "Knowledge of it is only with my Guardian;" (7:187), and: "I am nothing but a warner," (7:188). Those invoked have neither feet nor hands. Then the conduct: "Take the surplus," (7:199) command what is recognized and turn away from the ignorant; when the Recitation is read, "listen to it and be silent" (7:204).

   « We will surely expel you from our city, O Shu'ayb, you and those who have believed with you » 7:88

   « And We made the people who had been reduced to weakness inherit the risings and the settings of the land which We had blessed. » 7:137

   « and My benevolence embraces all things. » 7:156

   ↓ His Guardian has prohibited only indecencies; the next sura, which opens the last section, has him recite what the Guardian has made inviolable.

Closing: Alif Lam Mim Ṣad (7:1), then: "A Scripture has been sent down to you" (7:2).

← Summary frieze

1. 6

   What your Guardian has made inviolable

   165 verses

   The section opens on a praise and a reproach: God created the heavens and the earth "and made the darknesses and the light; yet those who disown set up equals to their Guardian" (6:1). No sign comes to them without their turning away from it. Generations established on the earth better than they were have been annihilated for their offenses; a writing on parchment, touched with their hands, they would call illusion, and if the Agent they demand came down, the matter would be decided.

   He receives his first sentences, all opened by the command to say. Let them travel through the earth and look at the end of those who denied; to God belongs what is in the heavens and on the earth, and "He has prescribed benevolence upon Himself" (6:12). He will take no other ally than the One "who feeds and is not fed" (6:14), and the Recitation was revealed to him "so that I might warn you by it, and whoever it reaches" (6:19). At the gathering, those who associated will swear they did not, and before the Fire they will want to be sent back; for to them "The near life is nothing but play and distraction" (6:32).

   Then the camera turns toward him, grieved: "it is not you they deny" (6:33), it is the signs of God that the wrongdoers reject. Other messengers, denied and troubled, were patient until the help came. If their turning away weighs on him, let him seek, if he can, a tunnel into the earth or a ladder into the sky. And everything that moves on the earth, every bird flying with its two wings, forms "communities like you" (6:38).

   Communities before were seized by adversity; when they forgot, the gates of everything opened upon them, then the seizing came unexpectedly: "Thus was the last remnant of the people who had done wrong cut off" (6:45). He must say that he has neither the treasuries of God nor the knowledge of what escapes the senses, that he is not an Agent: "I only follow what is revealed to me" (6:50).

   Around him stand people without rank, whom others despise, and the command is to keep them: "And do not chase away those who invoke their Guardian, morning and evening" (6:52). The powerful ask whether these are the ones God has graced. When these believers come to him, he receives them with peace: "Peace be upon you." (6:54), and tells them that their Guardian has prescribed benevolence upon Himself.

   God holds the keys of what escapes the senses: "No leaf tumbles but He knows it" (6:59). He keeps men by night, saves them from the darknesses of land and sea, and can also embroil them in factions and make some taste the violence of others. When he sees those who immerse themselves in the signs, he turns away from them until they change their discourse; he forsakes those who have taken their Law for play, and says: "The guidance of God, that is the guidance" (6:72).

   Ibrahim says to his father Azar: "Do you take idols as deities?" (6:74). The night closes in on him; he sees a heavenly body, then the moon, then the sun, "This is my guardian, this one is greater" (6:78), and each one disappears; he declares himself quit of what his people associate. His people dispute with him, and he raises the question of security: "Which of the two fractions, then, is more worthy of security, if you know?" (6:81). The answer comes: those who have not cloaked their faith in wrongdoing, "those are the ones who have security" (6:82).

   The informants file past, Ishaq and Yaacoub, Nuh, Dawud, Sulayman, Ayyub, Youssof, Moussa and Harun, Zakariya, Yahya, Issa, Ilyas, Isma'il, Al-Yasa', Younes and Lut, and the command is given to him: "model yourself, then, on their guidance" (6:90), without asking for a reward. To those who say that God has sent nothing down upon a human, he opposes the Scripture brought by Moussa. A blessed Scripture is given to him "so that you may warn the metropolis of cities and those around it" (6:92), the chief town, Madyan, where he now lives. The wrongdoers, in the throes of death, come alone, and "The bonds between you are indeed cut" (6:94).

   God splits open the seed and the kernel, makes the night a rest, gives the stars to guide oneself in the darknesses, brings forth the palm tree, the vines, the olive and the pomegranate. Sons and daughters are ascribed to Him: "How would He have a child, when He has no consort" (6:101). A rule of peace between beliefs is set down: "And do not insult those they invoke besides God, lest they insult God out of hostility" (6:108).

   They swear that a sign would make them believe; when it comes, they will not believe. He seeks no other arbiter: "Should I then seek a judge other than God, when it is He who sent down to you the Scripture, detailed?" (6:114). The word of his Guardian has been completed "in veracity and in justice" (6:115). One eats of that over which the name of God has been mentioned; God opens the chest of whomever He wants to guide, and those have "the Abode of Peace, with their Guardian" (6:127).

   At the gathering, Occulted and humans bear witness against themselves, and the rule is stated: "it is not in the nature of your Guardian to annihilate cities wrongfully, while their inhabitants were heedless" (6:131). Then the customs of the associators pass before the camera: a portion of the tilth and the cattle for God, another for the associates, beasts declared forbidden, and above all "the killing of their children, so as to cause their fall and blur their Law for them" (6:137). The sentence follows: "They are losers, those who killed their children out of foolishness" (6:140).

   God brings forth the gardens, the palm tree, the olive and the pomegranate; one eats of the fruit, but gives "its due, on the day of its harvest" (6:141), without waste. Eight beasts, in pairs: is it the males He has prohibited, or the females? He finds nothing prohibited, except the dead animal, spilled blood, the flesh of swine and what is consecrated to other than God, and whoever is hard-pressed into it is excused. Those who associate shelter behind the will of God; he answers: "To God belongs the conclusive argument" (6:149).

   Comes the recitation that gives the sura its title: "Come, let me recite what your Guardian has made inviolable for you" (6:151). To associate nothing with Him, beneficence toward the two parents, not to kill one's children out of destitution, not to approach indecencies, not to kill the Self that God has made inviolable, except by right; to touch the goods of the orphan only in the most beautiful way until he reaches full maturity, to give full measure, and "when you say a saying, be just, even toward a relative" (6:152). A single path, straight, against the ways that separate.

   Moussa receives the Scripture, then here is a blessed Scripture, so that none may say it was sent down only upon two groups before. He is in no way linked to those who have divided their Law and become factions. He says, to finish: "Should I seek a Guardian other than God, when He is the Guardian of every thing?" (6:164). No bearer of a burden bears that of another, and it is He who made them "successors on the earth" (6:165).

   « Come, let me recite what your Guardian has made inviolable for you » 6:151

   « and when you say a saying, be just, even toward a relative » 6:152

   « Should I seek a Guardian other than God, when He is the Guardian of every thing? » 6:164

   ↓ God tests them in what He has given them; the next sura takes up these words where each one receives a law and a way.

2. 5

   A law and a way

   120 verses

   Those who have believed receive their first command: "Be faithful to the contracts" (5:1). Cattle are permitted to them, hunting is not, while they are in a state of inviolability, and those heading for the Inviolable House must not be touched. The wound is still open, and it justifies nothing: "And let not the animosity of a people, for having barred you from the inviolable place of prostration, drive you to aggression" (5:2). They must help one another "in virtue and guardedness" (5:2), not in hostility.

   Comes the list of the prohibited: the dead animal, blood, the flesh of swine, the strangled animal, what a wild beast has devoured, the beast slaughtered in common whose shares are drawn by lot. In the middle of the list, God speaks: "Today, I have perfected for you your Law" (5:3). The wholesome things are permitted, the food of the people of the Scripture too, and women protected by the marital bond, believers or from their side, for their rewards. For the Contact, one washes, and without water a wholesome outcrop suffices: "God does not want to impose any discomfort on you" (5:6).

   Justice is set as an obligation that holds even before the enemy: "Be firm supporters for God, bearing witness with equity" (5:8), "and let not the animosity of a people drive you to not be just" (5:8). And at once: be just, for it is nearer to guardedness. They are reminded of a people who had wanted to stretch out their hands toward them, and whose hands God held back.

   God had taken the solemn engagement of the Sons of Israel and raised up among them twelve delegates; the engagement broken, their cores harden and they garble the words. The command to the messenger is to forgive: "So overlook it for them and turn the page" (5:13). Those who call themselves Helpers have also forgotten a share of the reminder. To the people of the Scripture a light has come, by which God guides "toward the ways of peace" (5:16), and to those who call themselves sons of God he answers: "Why then does He punish you for your offenses?" (5:18).

   Moussa tells his people to enter the sanctified land. They fear a people of tyrants; two men who feared God say to enter by the gate. The people refuse: "go, then, you and your Guardian, and fight, both of you; we, we will stay here, sitting" (5:24). Moussa has power only over himself and his brother, and the sentence falls: "for forty years they will wander on the earth" (5:26). A people come out of oppression, who refuse to enter, wander without a land.

   He must recite the information of the two sons of Adam. The offering of one is accepted, that of the other is not, and the other threatens to kill him. The first answers: "If you stretch out your hand toward me to kill me, I will not stretch out my hand toward you to kill you" (5:28). He is killed; a raven scratches the earth to show the killer how to conceal the evil of his brother. From this comes the law: to kill a Self, without it being for another Self or for corruption on the earth, "it is as if he had killed all mankind together" (5:32), and to give life to one is to give life to all mankind.

   The next law targets those who take up arms against the city: those who "wage war against God and His messenger, and endeavour to sow corruption on the earth" (5:33), the same words as for those who kindle the fire of war further on in the sura. It is the law of rebellion and of armed gangs, and the penalty follows the gravity: death or the stake for the gravest, then hands and feet severed on opposite sides, then exile from the earth. A door remains open to whoever lays down arms: "except those who turn back before you have power over them" (5:34). For the thief, male and female, the command is "stop their supports" (5:38), and whoever turns back and sets himself right, God turns toward him.

   Then: "O messenger! Let not those grieve you who speed into disowning" (5:41). If they come to him, he judges between them or turns away, and if he judges, it is with equity. The Tawrah had already prescribed the Self for the Self, the eye for the eye, the tooth for the tooth, "and for wounds, an investigation" (5:45), with a higher way out: "But whoever forgoes it as charity, it serves as an expiation for him" (5:45).

   Issa receives the Injil in the footsteps of the informants, then the Scripture comes down to him, confirming what precedes it: he must judge according to what God has sent down, without following their emotions. Each community has its road: "To each of you, We have assigned a law and a way" (5:48), and difference becomes a race: "Race, then, in good deeds" (5:48). The judgment of the age of ignorance is set aside.

   Those who have believed do not take as allies those who make a mockery of their Law; their Ally is God, His messenger and those who have believed. The Reoriented say that the hand of God is fettered; the answer comes: "No, His two hands are wide open" (5:64). And an image of peace crosses the scene: "Every time they kindle a fire for war, God extinguishes it" (5:64).

   The command to the messenger is clear: "O messenger! Convey what has been sent down to you from your Guardian" (5:67), and God safeguards him from men. To the people of the Scripture he says that they stand on nothing until they maintain the Tawrah and the Injil. Al-Massih, son of Maryam, is only a messenger, his mother a veracious woman, and "both of them ate food" (5:75). The call follows: "Do not exaggerate in your Law" (5:77).

   Among men, the closest in affection are those who call themselves Helpers; when they hear what has been sent down, "you see their eyes overflow with tears" (5:83). Then rules of common life: not to prohibit the wholesome things; a broken oath is expiated by feeding "ten destitute persons, of the best food with which you feed your families" (5:89), by clothing them, or by restoring the independence of a pledge; wine and games of chance are set aside, for they cast among them "enmity and hatred" (5:91).

   No hunting in a state of inviolability, and whoever kills game compensates with an offering or by feeding the destitute. For "God has made the Place of Articulation, the Inviolable House, a support for mankind" (5:97), with the inviolable month and the offerings. Then the testimony of the testament: two just ones, who swear after the Contact "and we will not withhold the testimony of God" (5:106); if they have betrayed, two others take their place, from among those whose right was violated.

   The sura ends on the day when God gathers the messengers. He reminds Issa of the cradle, the bird of clay, the born-blind and the leper, the dead, with His permission; the disciples asked for a table from the sky, and Issa prayed that it be "a festival, for the first of us as for the last" (5:114). Questioned, Issa answers that he told them only to obey God, his Guardian and their Guardian, and God concludes: "This is the day when veracity will benefit the veracious" (5:119).

   « and let not the animosity of a people drive you to not be just » 5:8

   « it is as if he had killed all mankind together » 5:32

   « To each of you, We have assigned a law and a way » 5:48

   ↓ "Do not exaggerate in your Law": the next sura repeats this call to the people of the Scripture, Al-Massih being only the messenger of God.

3. 4

   They consult you

   176 verses

   The sura opens on all mankind: "O mankind! Guard yourselves toward your Guardian, who created you from a single Self" (4:1), and on the ties of the womb. At once, the orphans: "And give the orphans their goods" (4:2), without substituting the vile for the good or mixing their goods with one's own to devour them. Marriage is tied to equity toward them, with the consent of the women themselves, those who find it good to marry, and the limit is justice: if one fears not being just, only one, so as not to buckle under the burden of a household. Women receive their dowries "as an attribution of full right" (4:4).

   Guardianship is regulated: one does not hand over to the foolish the goods that are a support, one tests the orphans until the age of marriage, and when their goods are handed over to them, "take witnesses regarding them" (4:6). The rich guardian refrains, the poor one eats according to what is recognized. At the division, the relatives, the orphans and the destitute who are present receive their share. Each one is invited to think of his own weak descendants, and the sentence falls: those who devour the goods of orphans "are only devouring fire in their bellies" (4:10).

   Then inheritance. Men and women each have their portion, "whether little or much" (4:7), a stipulated portion. "God instructs you, concerning your children" (4:11): the shares are counted, the half, the two thirds, the third, the quarter, the sixth, the eighth, always after a testament or a debt, and "without harm" (4:12). Those are the limits of God, and whoever crosses them enters the fire.

   Indecency of women among themselves is established only by "the testimony of four among you" (4:15), and it calls for no penalty: it is an order given to the family, to keep the woman at home, not to throw her out, "until death keeps them faithfully, or God opens a way for them" (4:15). This is not the case of sura 24, that of the woman bound to a man by the marriage contract. For "the two among you who commit it" (4:16), they are troubled, then one turns away from them if they turn back; repentance is received from whoever turns back without delay, not from the one who waits for death. Then women are protected against the men of their family: "It is not permitted for you to inherit women by force" (4:19), one lives with them according to what is recognized, and nothing is taken back of the quintal given, for they took "a solemn and firm engagement" (4:21). The prohibited women are named, the others permitted with the stipulated obligation, and the reason is given: "God wants to lighten things for you" (4:28), for the human being was created weak.

   Goods are not devoured through falsehood, trade is done by mutual satisfaction, "And do not kill yourselves" (4:29). To women a portion of what they have earned, as to men. Men assume the charge; in case of breach, admonition, keeping away, then "multiply them" (4:34), and if rupture threatens, an arbiter from his family and one from her family seek reconciliation. Beneficence extends from the parent to the orphan, "the near neighbor, the foreign neighbor, the companion at your side, the passing traveler" (4:36).

   On the Day, each community will have its witness, and he will be witness against these; those who disobeyed would wish "that the earth were leveled over them" (4:42). One does not approach the Contact while intoxicated. Some of those who received the Scripture twist their tongues, say that they have heard and disobeyed, believe in the Idol and the Overreacher, and hold those who disown to be better guided than those who have believed; if they had the dominion, "They would then not give men even the groove of a date-stone" (4:53).

   Then the law of the judge: "God orders you to restore trusts to their rightful owners, and, when you judge between men, to judge with justice" (4:58). In case of dispute, the matter is referred to God and to the messenger. Some want to bring their dispute before the Overreacher, and the hypocrites hold back; he must exhort them, and the rule is set: they will not believe "until they have taken you as judge of their controversies" (4:65).

   Mobilize. One lags behind and congratulates himself on not having been there. Then the question is put to all: "And what is with you that you should not fight in the way of God, and for the men, women, and children reduced to weakness" (4:75). Their voice is heard, left behind in an unjust city: "Our Guardian, bring us out of this city whose people are wrongdoers" (4:75), and they ask for an ally and a helper.

   When combat is prescribed, a fraction fears men; he must say that the enjoyment of the near life is little, and death overtakes even "in impregnable towers" (4:78). The ill that befalls them, they impute to him; everything comes from God. They say deference and plot something else by night: "Do they not then ponder the Recitation?" (4:82). Alarming news is referred to those who hold command, without being spread, and a greeting is returned "with a more beautiful greeting" (4:86).

   Then the law of peace. Those who are attached to a people bound by a pact, or who come with their chests constricted at the idea of fighting, are excepted, and the rule is given: "If they keep away from you, do not fight you, and offer you peace, then God grants you no way against them" (4:90). The believer killed by mistake is compensated, even if he belongs to a people bound by a pact. And on the road, one must distinguish clearly: "do not say to one who offers you peace" (4:94) that he is not a believer, for spoils.

   Refuge is regulated in turn. The Agents question those who remained under injustice, and they answer: "We were reduced to weakness on the earth" (4:97). The question comes back: "Was God's earth not vast enough for you to emigrate in it?" (4:97). Excused are the men, the women and the children who have no means, and the promise is made to the one who leaves: he "will find, on the earth, an abundant refuge and ampleness" (4:100), and if death overtakes him on the way, his reward falls upon God.

   On a journey, the Contact is shortened; in the face of danger, one group prays while the other keeps the arms. Do not weaken: "If you suffer, they indeed suffer as you suffer" (4:104). The Scripture was sent down to him "so that you may judge between men according to what God has shown you" (4:105), and he does not plead for the traitors; whoever accuses an innocent of his own fault bears a slander. The only secret talk worth anything is the one that orders an act of charity, what is recognized, "or a reconciliation between men" (4:114).

   The Diverter has sworn to lead astray and to make men alter God's creation; but man or woman, whoever does sound deeds enters the Garden. He is consulted again: "And they consult you concerning women" (4:127), and the answer embraces the orphan girls deprived of what is prescribed for them and the children reduced to weakness. Between spouses, "reconciliation is better" (4:128), and one does not leave a woman as though hanging. Justice is required even against oneself: "Be firm supporters in equity, witnesses for God, even against yourselves" (4:135), and God does not love that evil be said aloud, "except from one who has been wronged" (4:148).

   The hypocrites waver between the two camps, and the people of the Scripture ask for a scripture from the sky; Moussa is recalled, the calf, the Mount, the broken engagement, the slander against Maryam, and the word about Issa: they did not kill him, "God, rather, elevated him to Himself" (4:158). Then the revelation received as by Nuh and those after him, and the call: "Do not exaggerate in your Law" (4:171). The sura closes on a last consultation, the inheritance of one who has neither ascendant nor descendant, "so that you do not go astray" (4:176).

   « God orders you to restore trusts to their rightful owners » 4:58

   « Our Guardian, bring us out of this city whose people are wrongdoers » 4:75

   « If they keep away from you, do not fight you, and offer you peace, then God grants you no way against them. » 4:90

   ↓ "God, rather, elevated him to Himself" (4:158); the next sura gives the announcement made to Issa: "elevate you to Me" (3:55).

4. 3

   The clan of Imran, then the wound

   200 verses · label الم

   Alif Lam Mim returns, then: God, the Living, "sent down upon you the Scripture, in truth, confirming what precedes it" (3:3), after the Tawrah and the Injil. Some signs are univocal, "the matrix of the Scripture" (3:7), others lend themselves to resemblance, and those whose cores deviate cling to them. Those who are deeply rooted in knowledge pray: "Our Guardian, do not let our cores deviate after You have guided us" (3:8).

   Neither goods nor children will avail those who disown, any more than the clan of Fir'awn; he must tell them that they will be overcome, and recall the two battalions that met, one in the way of God, the other disowning. Passions are embellished for men, gold, marked horses, tilth. God bears witness that there is no deity but Him, "maintaining equity" (3:18), and the messenger, before those who dispute, has only one charge: "only the transmission is incumbent upon you" (3:20).

   The gravest crime is named: those who kill the informants, and "kill those who, among men, order equity" (3:21). He receives a prayer to say: "O God, Sovereign of dominion!" (3:26), to the One who gives and strips away dominion and brings forth the living from the dead. The believers do not take as allies those who disown, and the rule of following is given: "If you love God, follow me" (3:31).

   God chose Adam, Nuh, the clan of Ibrahim and the clan of Imran. The wife of Imran vows to God the child she carries; at the birth, she says: "I have indeed given birth to her, a girl" (3:36), names her Maryam and places her under the protection of God. Zakariya takes care of her, and each time finds provision near her: "O Maryam! From where does this come to you?" (3:37). Right there, he asks for offspring, and Yahya is announced to him, despite great age and a barren wife.

   The Agents tell Maryam that God has "chosen you above the women of all beings" (3:42). They announce to her a word, Al-Massih, Issa, who will speak in the cradle; she asks how, and God says to a thing: be, and it is. Issa comes to the Sons of Israel with the bird of clay, the born-blind and the leper healed, with the permission of God; when he perceives disowning, he asks who his helpers are, and the disciples answer. God says to him: "I am indeed going to keep you faithfully, elevate you to Me" (3:55).

   The example of Issa is that of Adam, created from earth. To those who dispute, he proposes to call sons and women on both sides, then he says: "Come to an equitable word between us and you" (3:64). Ibrahim was neither Reoriented nor Helper, but "wholly turned toward God" (3:67). Among the people of the Scripture, one returns the quintal entrusted to him, the other does not return even a dinar and says he has no obligation toward people without a Scripture: trust is judged by restitution.

   God took the solemn engagement of the informants to believe in the messenger who would come confirming what they have, and to help him. He must say that they believe in what was sent down to all, "we make no distinction between any of them" (3:84), and virtue is measured by what one spends of what one loves. Then the House: "The first House set down for mankind is surely that at the place of the throng, blessed and a guidance for all beings" (3:96). The station of Ibrahim is there, "and whoever enters it is secure" (3:97), and the Hajj is due from whoever has the capacity.

   The people of the Scripture are questioned: "Why do you bar from the way of God him who has believed" (3:99). Those who have believed are called to unity: "And hold, all of you, firmly, to the rope of God" (3:103), without dividing; they were enemies, and have become brothers. Let a community call to good: "You are the best community brought forth for mankind" (3:110), brought forth for others, not for itself.

   Those who disown will harm only by a nuisance; among the people of the Scripture, an upright community recites by night. What the others spend is like an icy wind on a tilth. No confidants outside one's own: those, when alone, "bite their fingertips, out of rage against you" (3:119), and the answer is patience, for "their scheming will not harm you at all" (3:120).

   The narrative moves to combat: "And when you left your household early, to settle the believers in positions for battle" (3:121). Two groups almost lost heart; they are reminded that they were already helped when they were humiliated. Help comes only from God, and to the messenger it is said: "You have, in this matter, no power" (3:128). In the middle of the war narrative, a law: "Do not devour usury, doubled and redoubled" (3:130), and the portrait of those who "restrain their rage, and overlook men" (3:134).

   Then the wound: "If a wound touches you, a similar wound has already touched that people" (3:140), and "Thus do the days go" (3:140). The question is put to all: if the messenger died, or was killed, would they turn back on their heels? They were climbing without turning back, while he was calling them from the rear; anguish upon anguish, then "a security, a drowsiness" (3:154). A group says: if we had had any power, we would not have been killed here.

   It is by a benevolence from God that he was gentle toward them; harsh, they would have dispersed. The command follows: "So overlook it for them, ask forgiveness for them, and confer with them on the matter" (3:159). God has graced the believers with a messenger from among themselves; to the question of where the defeat comes from, the answer is: "This comes from yourselves" (3:165). Those who were killed are alive with their Guardian, and those who responded after the wound say: "God suffices us; what an excellent trustee!" (3:173).

   Let not those who speed into disowning grieve him. The stingy will be encircled by what they withheld, and those who say that God is poor and they are rich have their words recorded. "Every Self will taste death" (3:185), and the believers will be tested in their goods and in their Selves. Those who had received the Scripture had pledged to make it clear to mankind, and cast it behind their backs.

   At the end, the possessors of intelligence remember God standing, sitting, lying on their sides, and pray: "Our Guardian, You did not create this in vain" (3:191). The answer names the men, the women and those who had to flee: "I do not let the deed of one of you who acts dissipate, male or female" (3:195), and "Those who have emigrated, been expelled from their abodes" (3:195) will enter the gardens. The last word is a command: "Be patient, surpass in patience" (3:200).

   « and whoever enters it is secure. » 3:97

   « and confer with them on the matter » 3:159

   « I do not let the deed of one of you who acts dissipate, male or female » 3:195

   ↓ "God has indeed graced the believers, by raising up among them a messenger, from among themselves" (3:164); the next sura lets Ibrahim and Isma'il be heard asking for him: "raise up among them a messenger, from among themselves" (2:129).

5. 2

   Guidance for those who guard themselves

   286 verses · label الم

   Alif Lam Mim, then: "This is the Scripture: no doubt possible" (2:2), guidance for those who guard themselves, who believe even without seeing, maintain the Contact and spend. For those who disown, it is the same whether he warns them or not; others say they believe and mock, and when they are told not to sow corruption, they answer: "We are only making things sound" (2:11). Then the call to all: "O mankind! Obey your Guardian" (2:21), who made the earth a bed and the sky a construction. The losers are those who break the pact, "cut off what God ordered to be joined, and sow corruption on the earth" (2:27).

   The narrative goes back to the origin: "I am going to place a successor on the earth" (2:30). The Agents object: "Will You place therein one who will sow corruption in it and shed blood" (2:30). God teaches Adam all the attributes, all prostrate except Iblis; Adam and his spouse slip out of the Garden, then receive the promise: "if guidance comes to you from Me" (2:38), no fear upon those who follow it. All the law that follows answers this objection of the blood shed.

   Comes the call to the Sons of Israel: "Remember My blessing, that with which I blessed you" (2:40). The text places again before their eyes the clan of Fir'awn slaughtering their sons, the sea split, the calf, the cloud, the manna and the quails, the twelve springs where each group knew its drinking place. They demand vegetables, garlic and lentils; humiliation is imprinted upon them, "and they incurred the anger of God" (2:61). Then the command to slaughter a cow, three questions, and a Self killed for which each one sought to push the blame away.

   The pact is read to them again: beneficence toward parents, relatives, orphans and the destitute, "and say to men what is beautiful" (2:83), then: "You shall not shed your blood, and shall not expel yourselves from your abodes" (2:84). Yet here they are killing one another and driving out some of their own, then ransoming the captives though the expulsion was prohibited to them. The most unjust is the one who prevents "God's name from being mentioned in God's places of prostration" (2:114); to God belong the east and the west, and the answer to all doctrines is: "The guidance of God, that is the guidance" (2:120).

   Then Ibrahim, tested by words, is made a guide for mankind, but "My pact does not accrue to the wrongdoers" (2:124). The House is set down: "And when We made the House, for mankind, a place to come back to, and a security" (2:125). Ibrahim asks: "My Guardian, make of this a secure land, and provide its inhabitants with fruits" (2:126); with Isma'il he raises the foundations, and prays: "raise up among them a messenger, from among themselves" (2:129).

   Yaacoub, dying, asks his sons whom they will obey after him, and they answer: a single deity. The foolish ask why the rallying point has changed; the believers become "an exemplary community" (2:143), witnesses against mankind, and the course is given: "Set your course, then, for the inviolable place of prostration" (2:144). Then the test, "with some fear and hunger" (2:155), and virtue redefined: not turning the face, but giving of one's goods "to relatives, orphans, the destitute, the passing traveler, those who ask, and for redeeming the pledges" (2:177).

   Then the law of blood: "The investigation is prescribed for you concerning those killed" (2:178). The investigation is conducted between peers, the independent for the independent, the obedient one for the obedient one, the woman for the woman, without conflict of interest; if the victim's side, his brother, overlooks something, there remains a pursuit according to what is recognized and a discharge in good grace, and the aggressor who relapses is sanctioned. The reason is given: "And you have, in the investigation, a life, O possessors of intelligence" (2:179). Then come the testament, the abstinence of the month of refreshment, and in the middle an answer: "I answer the call of the one who calls upon Me" (2:186). Judges are not bought: one does not offer one's goods "to judges to devour, through transgression, a fraction of the goods of mankind" (2:188).

   Combat receives its limits: "And fight, in the way of God, those who fight you, but do not commit aggression" (2:190). Those who expelled are expelled, one does not fight near the inviolable place of prostration before they fight there, and one fights until there is no more trial; but "if they cease, then no hostility, except toward the wrongdoers" (2:193). The riposte has its measure, equal to the aggression and not beyond: "The inviolable month for the inviolable month, and for inviolable things, an investigation" (2:194). Then the Hajj and the Umra, "no arguing during the Hajj" (2:197), and the surge from Arafat, where one remembers having been among the astray. The place is given back to all: the law of the Hajj provides for the case of one "whose family is not present at the inviolable place of prostration" (2:196), the passerby as well as the resident.

   A man dazzles with his speech, then goes off to sow corruption, "to annihilate tilth and offspring" (2:205); another sells his Self for the good pleasure of God. The call is launched: "O you who have believed! Enter into peace, in totality" (2:208). The Scripture comes down to judge the divergences, and the messenger and those who have believed, shaken, ask: "When, then, is the help of God?" (2:214).

   The consultations follow one another. Combat is prescribed despite aversion; on the inviolable month, the answer is twofold: "To fight in it is grave" (2:217), but "to bar from the inviolable place of prostration, and to expel its inhabitants from it, is graver still with God" (2:217). Those who have emigrated and striven hope for benevolence. On orphans: "Making their situation sound is a good" (2:220), and if one mixes one's affairs with theirs, "they are your brothers" (2:220).

   Then the family: repudiated women wait three cycles, "And they have rights equivalent to their obligations, according to what is recognized" (2:228); repudiation is twice, and one does not retain a woman "to harm, to commit aggression" (2:231). Mothers take charge of their children for two years, the father provides for their subsistence, and "Let no mother be harmed because of her child" (2:233); widows have their waiting period, and an enjoyment until the anniversary, without expulsion.

   They went out of their abodes by thousands, wary of death. The council of the Sons of Israel demands a king, for "we have been expelled from our abodes and from our sons" (2:246), then turns its back on combat. Talut is chosen, the river sorts the men, the small number prays facing Jalut, Dawud kills him, and the reason for all combat is stated: "And were it not for God repelling men, some by others, the earth would indeed have been given over to corruption" (2:251). Then God, the Living, whose Seat extends over the heavens and the earth, and the rule: "No compulsion in the Law" (2:256).

   Three scenes of life and death pass by: Ibrahim facing the king who claims to give life, the man dead for a hundred years near an empty city, the four birds. Spending is like a grain that grows seven ears; charity followed by nuisance is not worth a recognized saying, and it goes first "to the poor who are impeded in the way of God, unable to travel through the land" (2:273). God has permitted selling and prohibited usury; to whoever does not give it up, a war, and to whoever turns back, "the principal of your goods belongs to you, without your doing wrong or being wronged" (2:279). To the debtor in hardship, "a delay until ease" (2:280).

   The debt is put in writing, by a just scribe, before witnesses, "small or large, until its term" (2:282); on a journey, a pledge, and the one who was trusted restores his trust. At the end, the messenger and the believers say: "We have heard and we have deferred" (2:285). God imposes on no Self more than its capacity, and the sura closes on their prayer: "Our Guardian, and do not make us bear what we do not have the strength to bear" (2:286).

   « And when We made the House, for mankind, a place to come back to, and a security » 2:125

   « And you have, in the investigation, a life, O possessors of intelligence » 2:179

   « to bar from the inviolable place of prostration, and to expel its inhabitants from it, is graver still with God » 2:217

   ↓ The answer comes first, the Scripture "guidance for those who guard themselves" (2:2); the door, read last, makes the request: "Guide us on the straight path" (1:6).

Closing: Alif Lam Mim (2:1), then: "This is the Scripture: no doubt possible" (2:2).

← Summary frieze

1. 1

   Guide us on the straight path

   7 verses · gate

   After all the law, the camera turns back toward the one who reads: the speech is in the plural, and the text does not say who is speaking. It begins in the name of God, the All-Benevolent, the Benevolent, and praises Him, speaking of Him: "Praise be to God, Guardian of all beings" (1:2), "Sovereign of the Day of the Due" (1:4). It is the praise that those whom their Guardian has guided to the gardens say last: "Praise be to God, Guardian of all beings." (10:10).

   Then the speech turns and speaks to Him face to face: "It is You that we obey, and it is from You that we seek help" (1:5). Sura 2 said where to seek this help: "in patience and the Contact" (2:45).

   Comes a single request: "Guide us on the straight path" (1:6), that of those whom God has blessed with His blessing, "not of those who incur anger, nor of the astray" (1:7). Sura 2 had shown all three: the Sons of Israel blessed with a blessing, the anger incurred, the astray guided at the surge from Arafat. The answer has already been read, guidance for those who guard themselves; it remains for the one who reads to ask for it, or not. This request has already been heard twice in the Book: that of the refugee, Moussa fleeing toward Madyan, "It may be that my Guardian will guide me to the straight way" (28:22), and that of the two litigants before Dawud, "and guide us to the middle of the path" (38:22). Exile and justice meet at the door.

   « Praise be to God, Guardian of all beings, » 1:2

   « It is You that we obey, and it is from You that we seek help. » 1:5

   « Guide us on the straight path, » 1:6

   ↓ The Book closes on this request; its answer, the Scripture "guidance for those who guard themselves" (2:2), was read just before.

Closing: The Book closes on the request: "Guide us on the straight path" (1:6).