20:1  TA. HA.

20:2  WE did not reveal the Quran upon you, that you should suffer any anguish

20:3  except that it be a reminder for one who is in awe [of God]

20:4  A revelation from HIM Who created the earth and the high heavens.

20:5  Al Raḥmān reigning over all manifestation.

20:6  To HIM belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth, and whatever is between them, and whatever is under the ground.

20:7  Whether you are vocal with the word [or not]— HE certainly knows the secret thought and the even more hidden.

20:8  Allah! There is no god except HIM. his are the most beautiful names.

20:9  Has a telling of Moses come to you?

20:10  When he saw a fire, he said to his family, “Stay put here. I sense a fire. I may be able to bring you a brand therefrom or find guidance at the fire.

20:11  Then when he came to it, he was called, “O Moses!

20:12  Verily, I am your Rabb. Take off your sandals. You are in the holy valley, Ṭuwā

20:13  I have selected you. So, listen to what is revealed [unto you].

20:14  Verily, I am Allah. There is no god but I. Hence serve ME and perform Prayer for MY remembrance.

20:15  Surely, the Hour is coming. I have nearly hidden it so that every soul may be recompensed based on what it [freely and willfully] pursues.

20:16  So, let him not dissuade you from it— one who does not believe in it and follows his whims, for then you would perish.

20:17  And what is that in your right hand, O Moses?”

20:18  He said, “It is my staff. I lean on it, and I bring down leaves with it upon my sheep, and in it are other uses for me.”

20:19  HE said, “Throw it to the fore, O Moses.”

20:20  He threw it in front, and there and then it was a living creature in willful motion.

20:21  HE said, “Seize it and do not fear. WE shall restore it to its former mode.

20:22  And press your hand across to the side of your chest [to your heart]. It will emerge radiant-white without a blot—another sign,

20:23  that WE may show you from OUR transcendent signs

20:24  Go to Pharaoh. Surely, he has transgressed the bounds.”

20:25  He said, “My Rabb, open wide my bosom for me.

20:26  And ease my task for me

20:27  And untie the knot from my tongue—

20:28  [So that] they may understand my speech.

20:29  And appoint for me a task-sharer from my family,

20:30  Aaron my brother

20:31  Bolster my strength with him

20:32  And make him share in my mission

20:33  That we may contemplate, often and much, YOUR infinite power and unfathomable glory.

20:34  And that we remember YOU often and much

20:35  Indeed, YOU are ever seeing of us.”

20:36  HE said, “You have been granted all that you have asked for, O Moses”

20:37  And WE have already conferred favor upon you in a prior phase

20:38  When WE revealed upon your mother that which WE revealed:

20:39  “Toss him in the chest and then toss [the chest] in the water. And so let the water present him at the shore. An enemy to ME and an enemy to him will take him in.” And I had cast upon you, a love from ME, that you may be reared, according to MY vision [for you].

20:40  [So, it was] when your sister walked over and said, “Shall I point you to one who can nurse him?” Thus, WE returned you to your mother that her eye be soothed, and she does not grieve. You did kill a soul, and WE did deliver you from distress; WE tried you through many a trial. Then you did tarry for years among the people of Madyan. And now you have come according to destiny, O Moses.

20:41  I have staged you for MYSELF.

20:42  Go, you and your brother with MY signs and do not let up on MY remembrance.

20:43  Go both of you to Pharaoh. Surely, he has transgressed the bounds.

20:44  Speak to him— you both, with soft speech, so he may [by fair warning] heed or be awed.

20:45  They said, “Our Rabb, we do fear that he may act against us on impulse or simply transgress all limits.”

20:46  HE said, “Do not fear. Surely, I am with both of you. I hear, and I see.”

20:47  So, come to him, you both and say, “We both are Messengers of your Rabb; send the children of Israel with us and do not punish them. We have come to you with a sign from your Rabb. And Peace is on him who follows the Guidance [of God].

20:48  Surely, it has been revealed to us that the chastisement will fall upon whoever has denied the truth and turns away.”

20:49  [Pharaoh] asked, “And who is the Rabb of the two of you, O Moses?”

20:50  He said, “Our Rabb is HE who gave everything its being, and thereafter HE guided [it].”

20:51  He said, “Then what is to be thought of the previous generations?”

20:52  He said, “Their knowledge is with my Rabb in an indelible record. My Rabb does not err and neither does HE forget.

20:53  HE is the One who has made the earth a bed, and routed therein roads for you, and sent water down from the sky, and thus have we brought forth through it a multitude of species of plants.

20:54  [Says God]: ‘Eat and graze your cattle. In that there are signs for ones endowed with perceptivity.

20:55  From it [i.e., the earth] WE have created you and in it WE shall return you and from it WE shall bring you forth a final time.’”

20:56  WE indeed showed Pharaoh OUR signs—all [kinds] of them. Yet he denied the truth [of them] and refused [to obey the Message].

20:57  He said, “Have you come to us to bring us forth from our soil with your magic, O Moses?

20:58  Then we too will come to you with similar magic. So, set an appointment between us and you at a neutral place—we will not break it— neither us nor you.”

20:59  He said, “Your appointment is to be in broad daylight, during the gathering of masses on the Day of Grandeur.”

20:60  Accordingly, Pharaoh withdrew, assembled his plan and then he came [prepared for the tryst].

20:61  Said Moses to them, “Woe unto you. Do not lyingly attribute fabrications to Allah, lest he uproots you in dire consequence. Whoever has resorted to fabrications has indeed failed.”

20:62  So, they debated their undertaking amongst themselves and kept secret their deliberations.

20:63  They said, “These two are definite sorcerers who wish that they bring you out from your land with their magic and do away with your exemplary traditions.

20:64  So, put your plan together then come all aligned. Whoever has demonstrated supremacy today shall have won.”

20:65  They said, “O Moses! Either that you throw or that we be first to throw?”

20:66  He said, “Nay, you throw.” Thereupon, spontaneously their ropes and staffs suggested to him, with their magic-trick, that they were willfully moving.

20:67  And so, Moses felt a fear rising in him.

20:68  WE said, “Do not fear. Verily, you are the one elevated [by Truth and purpose].

20:69  Throw what is in your right hand—it will swallow what they have produced. They have only produced an artifice of sorcery. The one who uses sorcery [to obfuscate the Truth] will not succeed, wherever he has advanced to.”

20:70  And thus, the sorcerers were moved to fall in prostration. Said they, “We have come to believe in the Rabb of Aaron and Moses.”

20:71  Said [Pharaoh], “Have you come to believe in HIM before I have given you permission? Surely, he must be your senior, who has taught you sorcery. I shall indeed sever your hands and feet from opposite sides and crucify you on the trunks of the date palms, and then you will most certainly know which one of us is more severe in punishment and more permanent.

20:72  They said, “We will never prioritize you over HIM, WHO brought us into being, given what has come to us of the telling proofs. So, decide whatever you decide. You decide for no more than this earthly life.

20:73  Surely, we have come to believe in our Rabb, that HE may forgive us our faults and what you compelled upon us of the sorcery. Allah is best and permanent.”

20:74  Verily, he who comes to his Rabb as a flouter of divine guidance —for him is Jahannam. Therein, he shall neither die nor live.

20:75  And he who comes as a believer, having done virtuous deeds, they are those for whom are higher ranks:

20:76  Gardens of Eden, with subservient streams in flow, abiders therein. That is the reward of one who purifies himself.

20:77  WE did reveal to Moses: “Travel by night with MY devotees, then [upon reaching the shore] unfold a dry path for them in the sea. Be not fearful of being overtaken and be not in awe [of the sea].”

20:78  So [as destined], Pharaoh pursued them with his forces. Then, from the water engulfed them, that which engulfed them.

20:79  Pharaoh had led his people astray, and he did not guide them aright.

20:80  O children of Israel, WE did save you from your enemy and WE made a covenant with you on the right side of the Mount, and WE consistently sent down Manna and Salwa upon you.

20:81  Eat of the pristine [and wholesome] things WE have provided for you and do not transgress therein, lest MY indignation descends on you. On one upon whom MY indignation descends— he has certainly fallen.

20:82  Surely, I am definitely One to forgive one who has repented and has kept faith, and has done good, and then heeded guidance.

20:83  And [remember Allah had said], “What has made you hurry ahead of your people, O Moses?”

20:84  He said, “They are close behind, on my tracks and I hurried to YOU, my Rabb, that YOU grant assent.”

20:85  HE had said, “Surely, WE have tried your people in your absence and the Samiri has led them astray.”

20:86  Then, Moses returned to his people, angry and disappointed. He said, “O my people did your Rabb not make you a gracious promise? Did the promise stretch too long for you, or do you desire an indignation from your Rabb be due upon you? For you contravened my tryst!”

20:87  They said, “We did not contravene your tryst by our own freewill, but we were laden with the burden of the ornaments of the people. So, we discarded them, for thus had the Samiri offered.”

20:88  So [of this smelting] he extracted for them a calf in effigy, with a mooing sound to it. Thereupon they said, “This is your god and the god of Moses, albeit he has forgotten.

20:89  Did they not see that it was incapable of responding to them with a meaningful word? And it had no power to bring any harm or benefit to them?

20:90  And Aaron had warned them at the outset, “O my people, you are only being tested by HIM. Hearken! Your Rabb is Al Raḥmān. So then [to navigate this test], follow me and obey my bidding.”

20:91  They said, “We will not quit being its devotees, until Moses returns to us.”

20:92  [Moses] asked, “O Aaron what held you back when you saw that they had gone astray,

20:93  that you did not follow me? So did you renounce my mission?”

20:94  He said, “O son of my mother! Do not seize me by my beard, nor by my head. I was afraid that you would say, ‘You have caused a split between the children of Israel, and you did not observe my instruction.’”

20:95  Moses asked, “And what was your rationale O Samiri?”

20:96  He said, “I saw that which they had no insight into, so I grabbed a handful of a trace of the Messenger, and I discarded it. Thus, my soul proposed to me.”

20:97  Said he [Moses to the Samiri], “Now begone! Here on, for you in this life, is your saying: ‘No touching.’ And there awaits you a tryst. You will not be exempted from it. Look upon your god—the one you are stuck upon as a devotee, we shall grate it whole, then scatter it in the water as dust.”

20:98  The God of you all is only Allah, the One—no god except HE. HE has encompassed all things in knowledge.

20:99  Thus, do WE relate to you, events from what did indeed precede. And indeed, WE have given you a remembrance, from OUR divine domain.

20:100  Whosoever turns away from it, he surely shall bear a burden on the Day of Resurrection,

20:101  remaining in [that condition]. And wretched for them, on the Day of Resurrection, is any carried load—

20:102  a day, [souls] are blown into the forms. And WE shall assemble on that day the flouters of divine guidance, hazy of vision,

20:103  silently conveying between themselves [their inner regrets], “Verily, you tarried but ten.”

20:104  WE know best what they will say, when the most exemplary of them in conduct says, “You tarried but one day.”

20:105  They ask you about the mountains. So, say, “My Rabb will pulverize them— demolished without trace,

20:106  leaving [the land] level and bare.

20:107  You will see in it neither a turn nor a contour.

20:108  On that day, they will follow the caller, no dubiousness to him. And all voices will be muted in humility before Al Raḥmān. So, you will not hear except a hush.

20:109  On that day, the intercession [they count on] is of no benefit, except by one whom Al Raḥmān has granted leave and for whom HE has approved a statement.

20:110  HE knows what is in their present and what is facing them, whereas they encompass HIM not in knowledge.

20:111  And the faces yielded obediently to the Ever Living, the Eternal Self-Subsisting Sustainer of all. And whoever carried the burden of wrongs did indeed fail.

20:112  And whoever does from the right deeds and is a believer—he will fear neither punishment nor deprivation.

20:113  And thus, have WE sent down the Arabic Quran. WE have offered takeaways therein with the forewarning [of pending consequences to human choices], to enable them to be conscientious, or that it imparts contemplative lessons to them.

20:114  Regardless [of how they take to the Quran], Allah is exalted, the Sovereign, the Truth. Do not rush the Quran, before its inspiration has been fully imparted unto you, and pray, “My Rabb! Grow me in knowledge.”

20:115  WE aforetime did indeed bind Adam unto a pledge, but he forgot. WE were not to find him to have resolve.

20:116  [Recall] when WE said to the Angels, “Prostrate to Adam,” they all prostrated, except Ib'līs. He refused.

20:117  So then, WE said, “O Adam, this here is an enemy to you and your mate. So, do not let him expel the two of you from the Garden, or you will suffer anguish.

20:118  Verily, in it for you is that you will neither hunger, nor will you be bare

20:119  and in it you will neither thirst, nor need external light.

20:120  Yet when Satan whispered to him and said, “O Adam shall I point you to the tree of immortality and a kingdom never to decay?”

20:121  [Lacking resolve] they both ate of it. Thereupon their nakedness became apparent to them, and the two began to frantically cover themselves with the leaves of the Garden. Adam had disobeyed his Rabb and thus strayed off.

20:122  Thereafter his Rabb designated him [for HIS mercy] and thus relented toward him and guided him.

20:123  HE said, “Descend from [this Realm] all together— enemy one to the other. Hereafter, when guidance from ME does come to you [all], then whosoever follows MY guidance—he will not go astray nor suffer anguish.

20:124  And whoever turns away from MY remembrance— then for sure, for him is a myopic existence and WE will gather him blind on the Day of Resurrection:”

20:125  He asked, “My Rabb, why have you gathered me [into this assembly] blind, when I was [heretofore] with sight?”

20:126  HE said, “Thusly: When OUR signs came to you— you disregarded them; similar to that, this day you are disregarded.”

20:127  Thus, do WE recompense one who was wasteful and did not believe in his Rabb’s signs. The punishment of the Hereafter is indeed severer and more lasting.

20:128  Does it not guide them, how many of the generations before them WE have destroyed— whose habitations they now walk? Surely, in that are unmistakable signs for ones endowed with perceptivity.

20:129  Were it not for a Word from your Rabb which preceded, and a determined term— an ever mandatory and essential [accountability of theirs would be on hand].

20:130  So, bear patiently with what they say, and extol the limitless glory of your Rabb with praise before the rising of the sun and before its setting. And within sections of the night. Do then contemplate HIS infinite glory— and [do so as well] at the defining inflections of the day, to enable you to attain inner acceptance.

20:131  And do not let your eyes wander towards what WE have provided of the bloom of earthly life to some classes among them, [it has been given] so WE may test them through it. The sustenance of your Rabb is better and transcendent.

20:132  Bid your household to Prayer and persevere over it. WE do not ask you for sustenance, WE sustain you. And the abiding outcome is for the God-conscious.

20:133  They have said, “Why does he not come to us with a miraculous sign from his Rabb. Has there not come to them telling evidence of what was in the earlier Scriptures?

20:134  And if WE had destroyed them through a punishment before this, they would have surely said, “Our Rabb, if YOU had only sent a messenger to us, we would have followed YOUR messages, before our humiliation and fall from grace.”

20:135  Say, “Everyone awaits an outcome. So, do wait. For you shall know who the followers of the sound Path are, and who is rightly guided.”