AND CALL to mind, through this divine writ,* Mary. Lo! She withdrew from her family to an eastern place
God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His light is, as it were,* that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is [enclosed] in glass, the glass [shining] like a radiant star:* [a lamp] lit from a blessed tree - an olive-tree that is neither of the east nor of the west* the oil whereof [is so bright that it] would well-nigh give light [of itself] even though fire had not touched it: light upon light!* God guides unto His light him that wills [to be guided];* and [to this end] God propounds parables unto men, since God [alone] has full knowledge of all things.*
[and for this,] behold, We caused* the mountains to join him in extolling Our limitless glory at eventide and at sunrise,
And the earth will shine bright with her Sustainer's light.* And the record [of everyone's deeds] will be laid bare,* and all the prophets will be brought forward, and all [other] witnesses;* and judgment will be passed on them all in justice. And they will not be wronged,
And thereupon the blast [of Our punishment] overtook them* at the time of sunrise,
And so [the Egyptians] caught up with them at sunrise;
And God's is the east and the west: and wherever you turn, there is God's countenance. Behold, God is infinite, all-knowing.
THE WEAK-MINDED among people will say, "What has turned them away from the direction of prayer which they have hitherto observed?"* Say: "God's is the east and the west; He guides whom He wills onto a straight way."*
True piety does not consist in turning your faces towards the east or the west* - but truly pious is he who believes in God, and the Last Day; and the angels, and revelation,* and the prophets; and spends his substance - however much he himself may cherish - it - upon his near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer,* and the beggars, and for the freeing of human beings from bondage;* and is constant in prayer, and renders the purifying dues; and [truly pious are] they who keep their promises whenever they promise, and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in time of peril: it is they that have proved themselves true, and it is they, they who are conscious of God.
ART THOU NOT aware of that [king] who argued with Abraham about his Sustainer, (simply] because God had granted him kingship? Lo! Abraham said: "My Sustainer is He who grants life and deals death." [The king] replied: "I [too] grant life and deal death!" Said Abraham: "Verily, God causes the sun to rise in the east; cause it, then, to rise in the west!" Thereupon he who was bent on denying the truth remained dumbfounded: for God does not guide people who [deliberately] do wrong.*
whereas unto the people who [in the past] had been deemed utterly low, We gave as their heritage the eastern and western parts of the land that We had blessed.* And [thus] thy Sustainer's good promise unto the children of Israel was fulfilled in result of their patience in adversity;* whereas We utterly destroyed all that Pharaoh and his people had wrought, and all that they had built.*
[But Moses] went on: [He of whom I speak is] the Sustainer of the east and the west and of all that is between the two"-* as you would know] if you would but use your reason!"
the Sustainer of the heavens and the earth and of all that is between them, and the Sustainer of all the points of sunrise!*
But in the end,* when he [who has thus sinned] appears before us [on Judgment Day], he will say [to his other self], Would that between me and thee there had been the distance of east and west!"* for, evil indeed [has proved] that other self!
[He is] the Sustainer of the two farthest points of sunrise, and the Sustainer of the two farthest points of sunset.*
But nay! I call to witness [Our being] the Sustainer of all the points of sunrise and sunset:* verily, well able are We
The Sustainer of the east and the west [is He]: there is no deity save Him: hence, ascribe to Him alone the power to determine thy fate,*
