M.Asad · MealMerkezi.Net

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ALL PRAISE is due to God, who has bestowed. this divine writ from on high upon His servant, and has not allowed any deviousness to obscure its meaning:

M.Asad 18:1

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(a divine writ) unerringly straight, meant to warn (the godless) of a severe punishment from Him, and to give unto the believers who do good works the glad tiding that theirs shall be a goodly reward-

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(a state of bliss) in which they. shall dwell beyond the count of time.

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Furthermore, (this divine writ is meant) to warn all those who assert, "God has taken unto Himself a son."

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No knowledge whatever have they of Him, and neither had their forefathers: dreadful -is this saying that comes out of their mouths, (and) nothing but falsehood do they utter!

M.Asad 18:5

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But wouldst thou, perhaps, torment thyself to death with grief over them if they are not willing to believe in this message?

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Behold, We have willed that all beauty on earth be a means by which We put men to a test, (showing) which of them are best in conduct;

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and, verily, (in time) We shall reduce all that is on it to barren dust!

M.Asad 18:8

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(AND SINCE the life of this world is but a test, dost thou (really) think that (the parable of) the Men of the Cave and of (their devotion to) the scriptures could be deemed more wondrous than any (other) of Our messages?

M.Asad 18:9

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When those youths took refuge in the cave, they prayed: "O our Sustainer! Bestow on us grace from Thyself, and endow us, whatever our (outward) condition, with consciousness of what is right!"

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And thereupon We veiled their ears in the cave for many a year,

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and then We awakened Christianity was no longer persecuted and had even become the official religion of the Roman Empire. The ancient coin (dating from the reign of Decius) with which the young man wanted to pay for his purchases immediately aroused curiosity; people began to question the stranger, and the story of the Men of the Cave and their miraculous sleep came to light. them: (and We did all this) so that We might mark out (to the world) which of the two points of view showed a better comprehension of the time-span during which they had remained in this state.

M.Asad 18:12

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(And now) We shall truly relate to thee their story: Behold, they were young men who had attained to faith in their Sustainer: and (so) We deepened their consciousness of the right way

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and endowed their hearts with strength, so that they stood up and said (to one another): "Our Sustainer is the Sustainer of the heavens and the earth. Never shall we invoke any deity other than Him: (if we did,) we should indeed have uttered an enormity!

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These people of ours have taken to worshipping (other) deities instead of Him, without being able to adduce any reasonable evidence in support of their beliefs; and who could be more wicked than he who invents a lie about God?

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Hence, now that you have withdrawn from them and from all that they worship instead of God, take refuge in that cave: God will spread His grace over you, and will endow you - whatever your (outward) condition - with all that your souls may need!

M.Asad 18:16

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And (for many a year) thou might have seen the sun, on its rising, incline away from their cave on the right, and, on its setting, turn aside from them on the left, while they lived on in that spacious chamber, (bearing witness to) this of God's messages: He whom God guides, he alone has found the right way; whereas for him whom He lets go astray thou canst never find any protector who would point out the right way.

M.Asad 18:17

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And thou wouldst have thought that they were awake, whereas they lay asleep. And We caused them to turn over repeatedly, now to the right, now to the left; and their dog (lay) on the threshold, its forepaws outstretched. Hadst thou come upon them (unprepared), thou wouldst surely have turned away from them in flight, and wouldst surely have been filled with awe of them.

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And so, (in the course of time,) We awakened them; and they began to ask one another (as to what had happened to them). One of them asked: "How long have you remained thus?" (The others) answered: "We have remained thus a day, or part of a day." Said they (who were endowed with deeper insight): "Your Sustainer knows best how long you have thus remained. Let, then, one of you go with these silver coins to the town, and let him find out what food is purest there, and bring you thereof (some) provisions. But let him behave with great care and by no means make anyone aware of you:

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for, behold, if they should come to know of you, they might stone you to death or force you back to their faith-in which case you would never attain to any good!"

M.Asad 18:20

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AND IN THIS way have We drawn (people's) attention to their story, so that they might know - whenever they debate among themselves as to what happened to those (Men of the Cave) that God's promise (of resurrection) is true, and that there can be no doubt as to (the coming of) the Last Hour. And so, some (people) said: "Erect a building in their memory; God knows best what happened to them." Said they whose opinion prevailed in the end: "Indeed, we must surely raise a house of worship in their memory!"

M.Asad 18:21

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(And in times to come) some will say, "(They were) three, the fourth of them being their dog," while others will say, "Five, with their dog as the sixth of them" -idly guessing at something of which they can have no knowledge -and (so on, until) some will say, "(They were) seven, the eighth of them being their dog." Say: "My Sustainer knows best how many they were. None but a few have any (real) knowledge of them. Hence, do not argue about them otherwise than by way of an obvious argument, and do not ask any of those (story-tellers) to enlighten thee about them."

M.Asad 18:22

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AND NEVER say about anything, "Behold, I shall do this tomorrow,"

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without (adding), "if God so wills." And if thou shouldst forget (thyself at the time, and become aware of it later), call thy Sustainer to mind and say: "I pray that my Sustainer guide me, even closer than this, to a consciousness of what is right!"

M.Asad 18:24

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AND (some people assert), "They remained in their cave three hundred years"; and some have added nine (to that number).

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Say: "God knows best how long they remained (there). His (alone) is the knowledge of the hidden reality of the heavens and the earth: how well does He see and hear! No guardian have they apart from Him, since He allots to no one a share in His rule!"

M.Asad 18:26

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AND CONVEY (to the world) whatever has been revealed to thee of thy Sustainer's writ. There is nothing that could alter His words; and thou canst find no refuge other than with Him.

M.Asad 18:27

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And contain thyself in patience by the side of all who at morn and at evening invoke their Sustainer, seeking His countenance, and let not thine eyes pass beyond them in quest of the beauties of this world's life; and pay no heed to any whose heart We have rendered heedless of all remembrance of Us because he had always followed (only) his own desires, abandoning all that is good and true.

M.Asad 18:28

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And say: "The truth (has now come) from your Sustainer: let, then, him who wills, believe in it, and let him who wills, reject it." Verily, for all who sin against themselves (by rejecting Our truth) We have readied a fire whose billowing folds will encompass them from all sides; and if they beg for water, they will be given water (hot) like molten lead, which will scald their faces: how dreadful a drink, and how evil a place to rest!

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(But,) behold, as for those who attain to faith and do righteous deeds-verily, We do not fail to requite any who persevere in doing good:

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