6. Al-An'aam

He is the Vanquisher, Superior, over His servants. And He sends guardians over you, angels, to record your deeds, until, when death approaches one of you, Our messengers, the angels charged with the seizing of the spirits, take him (tawaffathu; a variant reading has tawaffāhu) and they neglect not, they do not fall short of what they have been commanded.

Then they, creatures, are restored to God their Protector, their Possessor, the True, the Eternal, the Just, so that He might requite them. Surely His is the judgement, the decree that will be carried out in their case. He is the swiftest of reckoners, reckoning with the whole of creation in half a day of the days of this world, on the basis of a hadīth to this effect.

Say, O Muhammad (s), to the people of Mecca: ‘Who delivers you from the darkness of the land and the sea, [from] their terrors, during your journeys? When, you call upon Him openly and secretly, saying: “Verily, if (la-in, the lām is for oaths) You, God, deliver us (anjaytanā, is also read anjānā, ‘[if] He delivers us’), from this, darkness and hardship, we shall truly be among the thankful”’, the believers.

Say, to them: ‘God delivers you (read yunjīkum or yunajjīkum) from that and from every distress, [from every] other anxiety. Yet you associate others with Him’.

Your people have denied it, the Qur’ān. Yet it is the truth. Say, to them: ‘I am not a guardian over you, to requite you. I am only a warner and your affair is left to God — this was [revealed] before the command to fight [the idolaters].

Every tiding, [every] announcement, has a conclusion, a [fixed] time in which it will take place and be concluded, including [the tiding concerning] your punishment. And you will come to know’ — this is a threat for them.

When you see those who engage in discourse about Our signs, the Qur’ān, in mockery, turn away from them, and do not sit with them, until they discourse on some other topic. And if (immā: the letter nūn of the conditional particle in has been assimilated with the extra mā) Satan should make you forget (read yunsiyannaka or yunassiyannaka), and you sit with them, then do not sit, after the reminder, that is, [after] you remember, with the evildoing folk (the overt noun [al-qawm al-zālimīn, ‘the evildoing folk’] replaces the [third person] pronominalisation).

The Muslims then said, ‘If we get up [and leave] every time they delve [into the matter of the Qur’ān], we would never be able to sit in the Mosque or perform circumambulations. Therefore, the following was revealed: Those who fear God, are not accountable for them, [for] those who discourse [in mockery], in anything (min shay’in: min is extra), if they should sit with them; but it is the reminder, that they are accountable for; [a reminder given] to make them remember and to admonish them, so that perhaps they will be wary, of discoursing thus.

And forsake, leave alone, those who take their religion, with which they have been charged, as a game and a diversion, making a mockery of it, and whom the life of this world has deluded, and so do not interfere with them — this was [revealed] before the command to fight [them]. Remind, admonish people, thereby, by the Qur’ān, lest a soul perish, [lest] it be given up for destruction, for what it has earned, what it has done; it has no protector, [no] helper, besides God, other than Him, and no intercessor, to ward off the chastisement from it; and though it offer every compensation, [though] it pay every ransom, it shall not be accepted from it, that which it offers as ransom. Those are the ones who perish by what they have earned; for them shall be a draught of boiling water and a painful chastisement, because they disbelieved, that is, for their unbelief.