E. H. Palmer's Translation of the Quran: The Chapter 'He Frowned'


(LXXX. Mecca.)

        IN the name of the merciful and compassionate God.

        He frowned and turned his back, for that there came to him a blind man!

        But what should make thee know whether haply he may be purified? or may be mindful and the reminder profit him?

        [5] But as for him who is wealthy, thou dost attend to him; and thou dost not care that he is not purified; but as for him who comes to thee earnestly fearing the while, [10] from him thou art diverted!

        Nay! verily, it is a memorial; and whoso pleases will remember it.

        In honoured pages exalted, purified, [15] in the hands of noble, righteous scribes!

        May man be killed! how ungrateful he is!

        Of what did He create him? Of a clot. He created him and fated him; [20] then the path He did make easy for him; then He killed him, and laid him in the tomb; then when He pleases will He raise him up again.

        Nay, he has not fulfilled his bidding! But let man look unto his foods. [25] Verily, we have poured the water out in torrents: then we have cleft the earth asunder, and made to grow therefrom the grain, and the grape, and the hay, and the olive, and the palm, [30] and gardens closely planted, and fruits, and grass,-a provision for you and for your cattle!

        But when the stunning noise shall come, on the day when man shall flee from his brother [35] and his mother and his father and his spouse and his sons! Every man among them on that day shall have a business to employ him.

        Faces on that day shall be bright,-laughing, joyous! [40] and faces shall have dust upon them,- darkness shall cover them! those are the wicked misbelievers!


From: The Quran. Translated by E. H. Palmer. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 9. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1880, 320-321.