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

70 AL KORAN. CHAP. TV.
thou commanded us to go to -war, and hast not suffered us to wait our
approaching end ? "^ Say unto them, The provision of this life is hut small ;
but the future shall be better for him wlio feareth God ;* and ye shall not
be in the least injured at the daij of judgTnent. Wheresoever ye be, death
will overtake you, although ye be in lofty towers. If good befall them,
they say, This is from God ; but if evil befall them they say, This is from
thee, Mohammed : ^ say. All is from God ; and what aileth these people,
that they are so far from imderstanding what is said unto them ? What-
ever good befalleth thee, O man, it is from God ; and whatever evil
befalleth thee, it is from thyself" We have sent thee an apostle unto men,
and God is a sufficient witness thereof. Whoever obeyeth the apostle,
obeyeth God ; and whoever turueth back, we have not sent thee to be
a keeper over them.^ They say. Obedience : yet when they go forth from
thee, part of them meditate by night a matter different from what thou
speakest ; but God shall write down what they meditate by night : there-
fin-e let them alone, and trust in GuD, for God is a sufficient protector.
Do they not attentively consider the Koran 1 if it had been from any
besides God, they would certainly have found thei'eiumany contradictions.
When any news cometh unto them, either of security or fear, they
immediately divulge it ; but if they told it to the apostle and to those
who are in authority among them, such of them would understand
the truth of the matter, as inform themselves thereof from the apostle
and his chiefs. And if the favour of God and his mercy had not
been upon you, ye had followed the devil, except a few of you.^ Fight
therefore for the religion of God, and oblige not any to what is
difficult,*" except thyself; however excite the faithful to war, pei'haps
God will restrain the courage of the unbelievers ; for God is stronger
than they, and more able to punish. He who intercedeth between men with a
good intercession * shall have a portion thereof; and he who intercedeth with
an evil intex-cession shall have a portion thereof; for God overlooketh al2
"> That is, a natural diatli.
* " Say unto them, The enjoyments of this world are transient ; the future life ia
the real treasure for those who fear God." — Savary.
" As the Jews in particular, who pretended that their land was grown barren, and
provisions scarce, since Mohammed came to Midina.*
° These words are not to be understood as contradictory to the preceding, That
all proceeds from God; since the evil which befalls mankind, though ordered by God,
is yet the consequence of their own wicked actions.
p Or, to take an account of their actions ; for this is God's part.
1 That is, if God had not sent his apostle with the Koran to instruct you in your
duty, ye had continued in idolatry and been doomed to destruction ; except only
those who, by God's favour, and their superior understanding, should have true
notions of the divinity; such, for example, as Zeid Ebn Amru Ebn Nofail,* ami
Waraka Ebn Nawfal," who left idols, and acknowledj^cd but one God, before the
mission of Mohammed.^
■■ It is said this passage was revealed when the Mohammedans refused to follow
their prophet to the lesser expedition of Bedr, so that he was obliged to set out
with no more than seventy.^ Some copies vary in this place, and instead of la
tokalla/o, in the second person singular, read la nokalhfo, in the first person plural.
We do not oblige, Sfc. The meaning being, that the prophet only was under an
indispensable necessity of obeying God's commands, however difficult, but others
might choose, though at their peril.
* i. e. To maintain the right of a believer, or to prevent his being wronged.
* Al Beidawi. * Vide Lilillium, de Mohammedismo ante Mob. p. 311. « See
the Prelim. Disc. sect. ii. '' Al BeidawL • See before, ch. iii. p. 64.