Surah An-Nahl: Thematic English Translation (Mustafa Çevik)

O people! The Day of Resurrection and Reckoning, whose time Allah has set and bound to a law, will surely come; Allah will not change its time because some of those who associate partners with Him mockingly say, “Let That Day come right now.”

Establishing the order of His creation belongs to Allah alone, and there is no true god but Him. He is far above and exalted beyond the partners they associate with Him.

Allah bestows prophethood on whom He wills of His servants and sends down the Spirit (revelation) to them through His angels, making known that there is no god but Him and calling people to be mindful and conscious of Him.

Allah created the heavens, the earth, and what is between them for people, bound to a perfect order and unfailing laws. Allah is far above having partners associated with Him and above every deficiency. He is above and beyond everything.

Though Allah created people from a drop of fluid, semen, and endowed them with so many blessings, most people ignore this, and without reflecting take other gods alongside Allah, oppose Him, and rebel.

It is Allah who created for you the livestock whose meat, milk, hides, wool, and much else you benefit from, which you watch with pleasure as they go out to pasture and come back morning and evening; and the horses, mules, donkeys, and many more on which you have yourselves and your loads carried. Allah is most compassionate and merciful toward His servants.

Showing the right path belongs to Allah. Had He willed, He would have left you without free will, compelled to choose only what is right. Allah has given the human being the will to choose between right and wrong, and will call him to account for the way he uses his will.

Allah, who sends down rain from the sky for you, meets with it the need for water of yourselves, your animals, and the plants. By it He also grows crops, date groves, olive groves, vineyards, and fruits and produce of every kind. In all this there are many proofs pointing to Allah’s knowledge, power, and godhood for those who use their reason.

Allah has created the night and the day, the sun and the moon, and placed them at your service. There are lessons to be drawn from these for those who use their reason and reflect. The many kinds of blessings Allah has created for you on the earth also show the greatness of His knowledge and power. But only those who seek the truth see these and turn to Allah’s call.

Allah has also placed the seas at your disposal; from them you obtain fresh meat and many blessings of the sea. You bring out ornaments such as pearls and coral, you make ships sail, cleaving the waters, and carry on part of your trade with them; you benefit from the works of Allah’s knowledge and from His generosity, and attain His favor. All these are clear proofs for you to grasp Allah as He deserves, give thanks to Him, and take Allah alone as God.

For the continuance of life on the earth Allah has set firm mountains upon it, and has also created between them roads and rivers that will bring you to where you are going. Along with these He has brought into being stars that guide those who travel by night on land and sea and make it easy for them to find their way. Can Allah, who created all this, ever be the same as those who have no power to create anything?

If you tried to count the blessings Allah has bestowed on you, you could never finish. Allah is compassionate, merciful, and forgiving toward those who use their reason, grasp these truths, repent of their shirk and disbelief, and turn back.

Do not forget that Allah knows both what you conceal and what you reveal.

As for those whom people who associate partners with Allah take as gods alongside Him, not only do they have no power to create anything, they are themselves created. What is more, most of them are not alive but dead, and they do not even know when they will be raised.

O people! Your God is Allah, who creates, endows with blessings, and invites to the right path. Though this is the truth, the hearts of those who associate partners with Allah, out of their ingratitude and arrogance, refuse to accept the godhood of Allah alone and the Hereafter.

Surely Allah knows both what they hide in their hearts and what they do openly. Allah never loves the ungrateful and those who boast and give themselves airs of greatness.

When those who associate partners with Allah are asked, “What has your Lord sent down to you; to what does He call you?” they answer mockingly, “To the tales of the ancients.”

By saying this, not only will they bear the full weight of their own sins, they will also bear sins for having caused some people to turn away from Allah’s call. Thus they will have taken on a very heavy and a very vile load.

The forefathers of these people who associate partners with Allah had also laid traps against Allah’s prophets. And Allah demolished from their foundations the traps they thought so sound, leveled them to the ground, and brought them down on their heads, and Allah’s punishment seized them at a moment they least expected.

Moreover, on the Day of Reckoning Allah will disgrace and humiliate them and say, “Come, tell Me: where now are those gods of yours of whom you said, ‘He solves our problems, he is our savior,’ and in whose defense you attacked and oppressed the believers?”

On That Day those who believed in Allah’s call and lived by it will say: “What an evil day this is for those who associated partners with Allah and denied the truth, the day on which humiliation, disgrace, and the punishment they deserved have begun.”

They had ended their worldly lives stubbornly opposing and resisting Allah’s call when the angels took their souls. When they are called on the Day of Reckoning to suffer their penalty, they will hang their heads, saying, “We had no intention of associating partners with Allah or taking anyone but Him as god; we did nothing wrong.”

And the angels will say to them: “No; you were warned about what to do, how to believe in Allah, and what not to do. What you say you did not do, you did out of arrogance. Allah knows fully what you did; so now enter the Hell you have deserved, to remain there for good.”

And if you ask those who believe in Allah’s call and fulfill what it requires, “What has your Lord sent down; to what has He called you?” they say: “He has sent down the truth and reality, and called us to live in submission to it.” Those who grasp this truth and fulfill their responsibilities will be rewarded with blessings, as the finest recompense, in the Paradise of the Hereafter, where they will remain forever. In the gardens of Paradise, where streams babble, they will find every good thing they wish for, taste everlasting happiness, and so attain Allah’s favor.

These are the ones to whom the angels say, “Peace be upon you; enter Paradise, to remain there forever, in return for what you did in your worldly life.”

Are those who cover up the truth and deny it waiting for the angels to appear to them to take their souls, or for Allah’s punishment to come upon them at once? Those who associated partners with Allah before them did the same, and in the end they were destroyed. The truth is that Allah did not wrong them; they wronged themselves. In the end, through their rebellion against Allah and their ingratitude, they invited the punishment, and the punishment they kept mocking surrounded them on every side.

They used to say mockingly: “Had Allah not willed it, neither our forefathers nor we would have associated partners with Him or forbidden what He made lawful.” Those before them said the same. Faced with this attitude of theirs, what falls to the prophets is to convey Allah’s verses plainly.

The truth is that We sent a prophet to every community, inviting them to know Allah as He deserves and to live serving Allah alone, and counseled and warned them to keep away from the systems of taghut (false authority). Some of them heeded the warnings and followed the call, but some turned away from the call and deserved to be left to themselves in their error.

O people! Travel through the land, and as you travel, reflect on how those who rejected the call made in Allah’s name lived and what their end was.

O Prophet! However much knowledge and proof you bring in calling those who stubbornly persist in shirk and disbelief to follow Allah’s call, you cannot persuade them or make them believe. Allah does not guide to His right path those who will not give up their stubbornness, and no one can help them either.

What is more, such people swear oaths by the name of Allah, saying, “Allah will not raise the dead.”

No; Allah’s promise is true, and when the time comes He will raise everyone to give account. But most people do not wish to accept this truth.

To those who persist in shirk and disbelief and will not believe in His verses, Allah will show that the Day of Reckoning is real and who the liar was, and will confront them with what they did and said.

Whenever Allah wills a thing to be, He only says to it, “Be,” and at once it enters the process of coming into being. No one can prevent what He says ‘Be’ to; when its time comes, it will surely come to pass.

Those who believed in the call the prophets made in Allah’s name and, because of their efforts to live it, suffered the oppression of those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth, and were forced to emigrate from their homelands and homes, We will settle in better places in their worldly life. And their reward in the Hereafter will be far greater. These believers bore hardships and trusted in Allah. If only the deniers understood this.

O Prophet! Those to whom We revealed and conveyed Our verses before you were not angels; they too were human beings like you. With patience and perseverance, never bowing to the oppressors, they carried out their tasks and invited people to live what is right. That this is so, they know from the truths remaining in the books of the people of the Reminder (dhikr), descended from those to whom We sent prophets and gave Books before.

We sent those prophets too with Books and clear proofs. Now you too explain the revelation We are sending down and invite people to follow it, so that they may learn and grasp what is right for them. Perhaps they will reflect and turn to what is right.

O Prophet! How can those who lay traps for you, wishing to perpetuate their systems of oppression, be sure that Allah will not level them to the ground, or that the punishment will not suddenly seize them at a time they least expect, while they are going about their daily business? No one has the power to avert such a penalty.

Moreover, do they never consider that, because they turn away from the call made in Allah’s name, He may leave them to themselves, rotting them from within and condemning them to destruction? Surely Allah is most compassionate, merciful, and forgiving toward His servants. That is why He gives them time to repent and reach what is right, and does not punish them at once.

Do those who persistently shun the call made through the Quran never reflect on what Allah has created and the perfection of the orders He has established for them? While even their shadows lengthen and shorten and turn to right and left in accordance with Allah’s laws, they themselves turn away from His verses. The certain truth is that, apart from Satan and those who follow in his footsteps, all that is in the heavens and on the earth submits to Allah, who created them, and never gives itself airs of greatness; they bow to the rulings of their Lord, who holds absolute dominion, and prostrate themselves in reverence. For Allah has said, “Never give yourselves airs of greatness against My command, and take no second god alongside Allah.” He is only one God.

The true Owner of all that is in the heavens and on the earth is Allah, and religion belongs to Him alone. He alone is worthy to be obeyed and worshipped and to have His rulings submitted to. There is no true god but Him, and none other to be feared.

It is Allah who has entrusted to the human being everything he imagines he owns.

Whenever hardship befalls those who associate partners with Allah, they at once take refuge in Allah and ask Him for help. Then, when Allah delivers them from the hardship, many of them turn away from Him, associate partners with Him, and are ungrateful. Go on living a while longer, enjoying the blessings Allah has bestowed; in any case, on the Day of Reckoning you will see the truth and meet what you deserve.

These people who associate partners with Allah set aside, from the provision We give them and from their earnings, a share for those they take as gods alongside Allah. What they set aside is of no use either to themselves or to the idols they take as gods. Allah will call them to account for these errors they have made up themselves and give them the penalty they deserve.

Some of those who associate partners with Allah, as if their ingratitude, ignorance, and insolence were not enough, even go so far as to attribute to Allah, as His children, daughters, whom they think unworthy of themselves and see as a burden on their backs, while they consider sons fitting for themselves. Indeed, when one of them is given the news of the birth of a daughter, his face turns black, as if he were going mad with rage; as though having a daughter were something shameful, he cannot face his people, and broods darkly, “Shall I bring up this child, bearing the disgrace, or bury her alive in the ground?” Shame on these vile customs and rulings they follow! Those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth commit these wrongs because they do not believe in the Hereafter and the Day of Reckoning. Allah will make them pay the price for what they do.

Allah is the Possessor of supreme power and justice, absolutely right in every judgment, and authority to judge over His servants belongs to Him alone.

Were Allah to punish people at once for the crimes they commit, not a single person would be left on the earth. He gives them time enough to repent of what they have done and return to what is right, which is Allah’s call; and when the time He has granted is up, they cannot delay their end by a single moment, nor bring it forward by a single moment.

While on the one hand those who associate partners with Allah attribute to Allah the daughters they think unworthy of themselves and dislike, on the other hand they insolently keep babbling the lie that, even if that life of the Hereafter in which they do not believe were real, they would be the ones worthy of Paradise.

Yet the fire of Hell awaits them in the Hereafter, and what is more, because of their shirk they will be the first to enter the Fire.

Truly, We sent prophets to the communities before you too. But Satan made the systems of shirk, disbelief, and oppression seem fine to those communities as well. And the majority, who were eager to follow him, became Satan’s companions, were ungrateful to Allah, ran wild, and called their prophets liars.

Satan is the friend of such people today, as he was in the past. A severe punishment awaits his friends.

O Prophet! We are sending down this Quran to you so that you may explain to people the reason for their creation and the system of life that accords with it. This Quran is a guide and a source of mercy, offering the truest solutions to the problems over which people quarrel. But only those who seek what is right benefit from it.

It is Allah who, with the rain He sends down from the sky, gives life to bone-dry, dead earth and revives it; and in just the same way Allah will raise people on the Day of Resurrection and call them to account as to whom they lived their worldly lives for, and by what standard. There are lessons to be drawn from this for those who use their reason and reflect.

Reflect on the perfect system by which milk is prepared, filtered out and secreted from between what is digested in the bellies of animals and the blood, and on the knowledge and power in its being offered to you. In this too there are lessons for those who wish to grasp the greatness of Allah’s knowledge and His power.

And in the creation of the fruits of the date palms that Allah your Lord has created for you, and in the creation of grapes, trellised and untrellised, from which you obtain both wholesome drinks and harmful, intoxicating drinks, there are many proofs for those who wish to know Allah as He deserves.

Allah your Lord revealed to the bee: “Make your homes in the mountains, in the trees, and in the arbors and hives people build; eat from every kind of produce and benefit from it, and do not stray from the routes your Lord has taught you.” And the bees, submitting to Allah’s revelation, make from what they eat, in their bellies, honey, a liquid of varied colors and flavors that is a healing for people. Surely all this is clear proof, for those who reflect, of Allah’s knowledge and power and of the perfection of the order He has established.

It is Allah who creates you, keeps you alive, and then will take your souls.

Allah brings some of you to the feeblest stage of life, to old age, when one no longer knows what he is doing or saying. He knows everything and has power over everything.

It is Allah, too, who has made some of you excel others in material means. Yet those who have been given more blessings do not share them with those who work under them. By doing so they ignore Allah’s commands, turn a deaf ear to them, and set about denying them.

Allah has created spouses for you of your own kind, and given you children and grandchildren from your spouses. And He has provided you with many good and wholesome things.

Some people, though they benefit from the provision Allah bestows, take other gods alongside Allah, who created them and endowed them with so many blessings; they go after beings created like themselves and turn away from Allah.

How can a human being take as gods helpless, powerless beings who cannot create for him any provision either from the sky or from the earth, and so associate partners with Allah?

Do not mix into the system of life that is Allah’s call things you have made up yourselves, and do not then set about drawing likenesses. Surely Allah alone knows what is truest in everything.

To help you understand the truth better, Allah gives you the example of these two people.

One is an ignorant slave under someone’s yoke, who has no power over anything; the other is a man of knowledge to whom We have given abundant wealth and property as provision from Our presence, and who is free to spend this provision on good as he wishes, openly or in secret. Can the condition of these two people ever be the same? Can any likeness or equality between them even be spoken of?

Surely all praise and thanks are due to Allah, who created so many blessings and bestowed them on His servants.

Reflect, too, on the example of these two men. One of them is mute, capable of nothing, ignorant and helpless, a burden on his master; whatever task his master gives him, he cannot manage it or see it through. The other is a man of great knowledge, who does all his work, and has it done, with justice and on the basis of what is right; he is on the right path himself and also calls others to what is right. Can the state of these two men ever be alike, or can they ever be equal?

The truth is that Allah is the Creator of the heavens, the earth, and what is between them, and the Founder of their orders. It is Allah, too, who knows what you need to know; and do not forget that when the time of the Last Hour comes, it will take place in the blink of an eye, or even less. Surely Allah’s power suffices for everything.

It is Allah who creates you in your mothers’ wombs, bestows on you ears to hear, eyes to see, and minds to think, and then brings you forth from your mothers’ wombs knowing nothing.

Should you not, then, give thanks to your Lord and obey Him for the blessings bestowed on you?

Do those who deny the verses of the Quran without reflecting on them never see how the birds fly in the void of the sky, thanks to the order and laws Allah has established? It is Allah who creates them in harmony with the laws He has set and makes them fly, and in these there are lessons for those who wish to see Allah’s knowledge and power.

It is Allah, too, who has bestowed on you the ability and the means to build houses to live in, and to put up tents from the hides of animals that you can carry easily.

And Allah has also bestowed on you the skill to make from the wool and hair of animals furnishing fabrics, household goods, and goods for trade, which you benefit from in the short and long term.

Along with these, thanks to the reason and abilities Allah has bestowed on you, you make garments and armor to protect yourselves from heat, from cold, and from the harm wars can bring.

It is Allah who created the shades in which you shelter from the heat of the sun and the caves in the mountains in which to take refuge. Your Lord, who bestows every kind of blessing you need in your worldly life, has also sent prophets and Books so that you can make right use of these blessings and give thanks to Him.

O Prophet! Despite so many blessings, you cannot turn by force to what is right those who turn away from your Lord’s call. Your task is to invite people, with the revealed verses, to what is right in Allah’s name.

People know that the blessings they possess have been created and given them by Allah; yet the ungrateful majority persist in not following the system of life that is Allah’s call.

On the Day of Reckoning We will gather in Our presence every community together with the prophets We sent to them. Their prophets will bear witness concerning them. On That Day those who ended their worldly lives with their eyes closed to the truth cannot plead that they were unaware of Allah’s call, nor take cover behind such an excuse. Their wishes to be returned to the world to live in keeping with Allah’s call, and their pleas for pardon, will not be accepted either.

When they come face to face with the punishment of Hell, they will bitterly regret paying no heed, though they were warned in their worldly lives of the severe punishment of the Fire. But it is far too late now... The punishment of the Fire will not be lightened for them, nor will anyone so much as look at them. And on That Day, when they see in Hell those they associated with Allah as partners and followed, they will say, “Our Lord, these are the ones who caused us to turn away from Your call and presented themselves as gods alongside You,” and so they will try to clear themselves. But those they took as gods will say to them: “We did not compel you to obey us; do not lie and make yourselves out to be innocent.”

In the end, when it is far too late, they will all declare their unconditional submission to Allah. On That Day those who took gods other than Allah and those they took as gods will be of no use to one another, and will leave one another in the lurch.

Those who not only stubbornly persist in living associating partners with Allah and in ingratitude, but also try to keep others from following the right path, will be punished with punishment upon punishment for the corruption and decay they have caused.

On that Day of Reckoning, when We call the prophets of every community to bear witness concerning them, O Muhammad, We will make you too a witness concerning the people you invited; for We have sent down to you too this Book, a source of guidance and mercy and a bearer of good news to those who believe, so that you may explain to people the reason for their creation.

Surely Allah commands justice, doing good, and helping kinsfolk, and forbids indecency, wanton rebellion, overstepping the bounds, and stinginess. Allah explains these things to you so that you may reflect and take counsel, and know your responsibilities toward Allah.

Keep faithfully the promises you make to Allah and to people. Do not break the oaths you have confirmed by taking Allah as witness; do not forget that Allah is aware of all you do.

Do not use your oaths as a means of deceiving the weak among you, or as a tool for gain, because one group among you is stronger and more influential, out of fear of them or hope of benefit. Do not be like the woman who, after spinning her yarn firmly and winding it, undoes it and ruins it again. Allah is testing you also by your faithfulness to your oaths. On the Day of Reckoning Allah will set all your deeds before you.

Had Allah willed, He would not have given you the will to choose your way of life; He would have compelled you all to follow the belief of tawhid and made you a single community. In the end every person will be called to account for the way of living he chose by his own will.

Do not turn your oaths into a means of deception; otherwise, though your feet are firmly planted, you will be shaken and slip. Thus you will have made Allah’s name a tool for your petty interests, and be among the losers both in this world and in the Hereafter; and what is more, in the Hereafter you will be struck with a greater punishment.

O believers! Hold fast to the covenant you have made with Allah to take Allah alone as God, believe in His call, and fulfill what it requires, and do not barter your word for the passing gains of this world. For keeping your word there is a very great reward with Allah. Your worldly life and what you gain in it will run out, but what is with Allah never runs out. Those who are faithful to the word they have given, who bear the hardships they meet in this cause and struggle without compromise, Allah will reward by the best of what they did.

Whoever, man or woman, behaves chastely, virtuously, and honestly, and does righteous deeds as a believer, We will make live a pure, clear, clean, and good life in this world too, and in the Hereafter We will reward what they did many times over.

As you read this Quran, which will bring you to happiness in this world and the Hereafter, and strive to understand it and live by it, seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the outcast, lest he confuse your minds and cloud your feelings.

Know well, too, that Satan has no power to compel those who believe wholeheartedly in Allah and trust in Him alone.

Satan takes as his friends only those who take other gods alongside Allah, trust them, and hope for help from them; over them he holds sway and makes them do what he wishes.

When earlier communities abandoned and did away with the rulings of the verses We had sent, We put new ones in their place through the Books We sent later. We also determine the time and conditions for the application of the rulings of the verses. And those who associate partners with Allah say to the Prophet, “You make these up and speak them yourself.” Yet the truth is that they do not want to hear and know the truth.

O Prophet! Say to them: “I am not making these up. This Quran is being sent down in Allah’s name by the Holy Spirit (Gabriel), to guide those who believe and to strengthen and support them.” We also know that those who associate partners with Allah say, “Some of the People of the Book are teaching this Quran to Muhammad, and he comes and recites it to us”; but the tongue of those they allude to is not even Arabic, whereas the Quran is being sent down in Arabic, the language of the people to whom it has come, very clear and comprehensible.

Allah does not grant the ungrateful, who deny His verses and stubbornly persist in remaining in shirk and disbelief, to live the system of life that is the reason for their creation, and in the Hereafter there is a harsh punishment for them. As for those who call the verses the Prophet conveys in Allah’s name lies and say they are Muhammad’s invention, it is they who are the real liars.

Except for one who, though he believes wholeheartedly, is forced under duress to say outwardly that he has given up his faith in Allah, anyone who says he is a believer and then gives up his faith and returns to shirk and disbelief incurs Allah’s wrath in this world and the Hereafter. The reason they deserve this penalty is that they preferred the short and fleeting worldly life to the life of the Hereafter. Allah does not grant them to live by the right system of life, and because of this ungrateful turning of theirs He seals their hearts, their ears, and their eyes.

Without doubt they will meet the penalty for this in the Hereafter too, and suffer ruin.

Allah is the Helper of those who, while struggling to believe in Allah’s call and fulfill their responsibilities, suffer persecution and oppression and are forced to emigrate from their homelands. Allah is most compassionate, merciful, and forgiving toward these believers.

In the end a day will come when everyone will be taken up with his own plight; everyone will be paid in full for what he did in his worldly life, and no one will be wronged.

Consider the state of this community, whose case is made known as an example. While they lived in prosperity and security amid the abundant blessings Allah gave them from every side, this people turned away from the system of life to which they were invited and were ungrateful, and Allah, because of their ingratitude, condemned them to the scourge of hunger, famine, and fear. They had accused their prophet of lying. Then Allah’s punishment seized them and leveled them to the ground.

O you who believe! Eat of the lawful and wholesome provision your Lord has bestowed on you, and give thanks to Him and obey Him.

Allah has forbidden you carrion, blood, the flesh of swine, and the meat of animals slaughtered in the name of other than Allah; but one who is faced with a hardship such as the danger of dying of hunger may eat of them, provided he does not exceed what necessity requires or go beyond his need. Allah forgives those who face such a compulsion. He is most merciful, compassionate, and forgiving toward His believing servants.

Do not lay down rulings at random, making up lies without any knowledge or proof from Allah, saying, “This is lawful, and that is forbidden.” The authority to determine the lawful and the forbidden belongs to Allah alone; those who presume to lay down rulings with lies of their own making will never prosper.

For those who follow the rulings they themselves have laid down, and encourage others to follow them, in order to obtain some gain in the fleeting worldly life, there is a most severe punishment in the Hereafter.

Besides what We have made known to you, We also forbade certain foods to the Jews because they were ungrateful to Allah. We did not wrong them with this ruling of Ours; they wronged themselves by deserving this penalty.

Know well, too, that your Lord forgives those who commit sins out of not knowing and ignorance, and then, when they learn it was a sin, repent and turn to what is right and hold fast to it. For your Lord is most merciful and compassionate toward those who, after their repentance, submit to their Lord and fulfill what faith requires.

O you who associate partners with Allah! Abraham, of whom you boast and whom you call your forefather, took Allah alone as God, believed in the system of life that is His call, and strove (jihad) with all his might to live it and keep it alive; he was, as it were, a community in himself, and he was never one of those who associate partners with Allah.

Abraham always gave thanks to his Lord, who showed him the right path and bestowed so many blessings on him, and strove to fulfill his responsibilities. And We granted Abraham good things in this world. In the Hereafter, too, he will be among Allah’s chosen servants.

O Prophet! Follow, you too, the religion of Abraham, who was devoted wholeheartedly to his Lord and took Him alone as God, for he was not one of those who associate partners with Allah.

Certain prohibitions regarding the Saturday (the Sabbath) are for the Jews, who did not keep the word they gave Allah and went against His commands. Contrary to what they say, there were no such prohibitions in the religion (system) to which Abraham invited. On the Day of Reckoning Allah will pass His judgment on those who keep disputing about His prohibitions.

O Prophet! Invite people to your Lord’s way with wisdom and fine counsel; and argue with those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth in the finest way, based on knowledge. Your Lord knows best who believes wholeheartedly in His call and who rejects it.

O believers! Respond to those who use force against you and oppress you with a response equal to what was done to you. But if you bear these things and are patient, this will lead to better outcomes for you.

Hold out with perseverance, without compromise, against the persecution met in Allah’s way; do not forget that Allah increases the strength of those who show patience in this.

Pay no heed to the traps those who associate partners with Allah lay and the persecution they inflict, and do not grieve. Allah is with those who sincerely strive to live and keep alive the system of life that is the reason for their creation.