SURA CVI.-THE KOREISCH [XX.]
Mecca.-4 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
For the union of the Koreisch:-
Their union in equipping caravans winter and summer.
And let them worship the Lord of this house, who hath provided them with food against hunger,
And secured them against alarm.1
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1 In allusion to the ancient inviolability of the Haram, or precinct round Mecca. See Sura, xcv. n. p. 41. This Sura, therefore, like the preceding, is a brief appeal to the Meccans on the ground of their peculiar privileges.
SURA XCVII.-POWER [XXI.]
Mecca.-5 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Verily, we have caused It1 to descend on the night of power.
And who shall teach thee what the night of power is?
The night of power excelleth a thousand months:
Therein descend the angels and the spirit by permission of their Lord for every matter;2
And all is peace till the breaking of the morn.
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1 The Koran, which is now pressed on the Meccans with increased prominence, as will be seen in many succeeding Suras of this period.
2 The night of Al Kadr is one of the last ten nights of Ramadhan, and as is commonly believed the seventh of those nights reckoning backward. See Sura xliv. 2. “Three books are opened on the New Year’s Day, one of the perfectly righteous, one of the perfectly wicked, one of the intermediate. The perfectly righteous are inscribed and sealed for life,” etc. Bab. Talm. Rosh. Hash., § I.
SURA LXXXVI. THE NIGHT-COMER [XXII.]
Mecca. 17 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
By the heaven, and by the night-comer!
But who shall teach thee what the night-comer is?
’Tis the star of piercing radiance.
Over every soul is set a guardian.
Let man then reflect out of what he was created.
He was created of the poured-forth germs,
Which issue from the loins and breastbones:
Well able then is God to restore him to life,-