١Alif. Lam. Mim.
٢THESE ARE MESSAGES of the divine writ, full of wisdom,
٣providing guidance and grace unto the doers of good
٤who are constant in prayer and dispense charity: for it is they, they who in their innermost are certain of the life to come!
٥It is they who follow the guidance [that comes to them] from their Sustainer; and it is they, they who shall attain to a happy state!
٦But among men there is many a one that prefers a mere play with words [to divine guidance], so as to lead [those] without knowledge astray from the path of God, and to turn it to ridicule: for such there is shameful suffering in store.
٧For, whenever Our messages are conveyed to such a one, he turns away in his arrogance as though he had not heard them - as though there were deafness in his ears. Give him, then, the tiding of grievous suffering [in the life to come].
٨[As against this,] verily, those who attain to faith and do righteous deeds shall have gardens of bliss,
٩to abide therein in accordance with God’s true promise: for He alone is almighty, truly wise.
١٠He [it is who] has created the skies without any supports that you could see, and has placed firm mountains upon the earth, lest it sway with you, and has caused all manner of living creatures to multiply thereon. And We send down water from the skies, and thus We cause every noble kind [of life] to grow on earth.
١١[All] this is God’s creation: show Me, then, what others than He may have created! Nay, but the evildoers are obviously lost in error!