J. F. Campbell Collection > Koran: or, Alcoran of Mohammed

32(5 Ai. KOK^VN. CHAP. XXIX.
cerning that which they have falsely devised.* We heretofore sent Noah
unto his people ; and he tarried among them one thousand years, save fifty
years :* and the deluge took them away, while they tfere acting unjustly; but
we delivered him and those who were in the ark, and we made the same ^
a sign unto all creatures. We also sent Abraham ; when he said unto his peo-
ple, Serve God, and fear him ; this will be better for you; if ye understand.
Ye only worshi]) idols besides God, and forge a lie. Verily those which ye
worship, besides GoD, are not able to mL.kfi any provision for you : seek
therefore your provision from God ; and serve him, and give thanks unto
him ; unto him shall ye return. If ye charg& r/^ with imposture,' verily
sundry nations before you likewise charged their projihe/s with imposture:
but public preaching only is incumbent on an apostle. Do they not see how
God produceth creatures, and afterwards restoreth them ] ™ Verily this is
easy with GoD.t Say, go through the earth, and see how he originally
produceth creatures : afterwards will God reproduce another production ;
for God is almighty. He will punish whom he pleaseth, and he will have
mercy on whom he pleaseth. Before him shall ye be brought a^ the day of
judgment : and ye shall not escape his reach, either in earth, or in heaven i"^
rfeither shall ye have any patron or defender besides God. As for those
who believe not in the signs of God, or that they shall meet him at tlie
resurrection, they shall despair of my mercy, and for them is a painful
Y)\mi&hviie\it prepared. And the ansv/er of his people was no other than that
they said, Slay him, or burn him. But God saved him from the fire "^
Verily herein were signs unto people who believed. And Abraham said,
♦ " They shall bear only the burden of their own iniquities, and at the day of re-
surrection they shall be called on to answer for their falsehood." — Savary.
'This is true if the whole life of Noah be reckoned; and accordingly Abu'lfeda
says he was sent to preach in his two hundred and fiftieth year, and that he lived
in all nine hundred and fifty : but the text seeming to speak of those years only which
he spent in preaching to the wicked antediluvians, the commentators suppose him
to have lived much longer. Some say the whole length of his life was a thousand
and fifty years ; that his mission happened in the fortieth year of his age, and that
he lived after the flood sixty years i^ and others give different numbers ; one, in
particular, pretending that Noah lived near sixteen hundred years.*
This circumstance, says al Beidawi, was mentioned to encourage Mohammed,
and to assure him that God, who supported Noah so many years against the oppo-
sition and plots of the antediluvian infidels, who would not fail to defend him against
all attempts of the idolatrous Meccans and their partisans.
k I. e. The ark.
' This seems to be part of Abraham's speech to his people : but some suppose that
God here speaks, by way of apostrophe, first to the Koreish, and afterwards to
Mohammed ; and that the parenthesis is continued to these words, And the answer
of his people was no other, &c. In which case we should have said, If ye charge Mo-
hammed your apostle with imposture, &c.
™ The infidels are bid to consider how God causeth the fruits of the earth to spring
forth, and reneweth them every year, as in the preceding ; which is an argument o?
his power to raise man, whom he created at first, to life again after death, at his
own appointed time.
t " Have they not seen how God produceth a creature ? It is thus that he wiU
call it to life again. This miracle is easy unto his power." — Savary..
"° See Psalm cxxxix. 7, &c.
o See chap. 21, p. 268.
8 Al Beidawi, Al Zamakh. • Caab, apud Yahjam.