Sura 34 Sheba (Saba)

In the name of God, the Almighty, the Merciful.

[34:1] Praise be to God, to whom belongs what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, and praise be to Him in the Hereafter. He is the Wise, the All-Aware.

[34:2] He knows what goes into the earth and what comes out of it, and what descends from the sky and what ascends in it. He is the Merciful, the Forgiver.

[34:3] Those who disbelieved said, "The Hour will not come upon us." Say, "Yes indeed! By my Lord, it will come upon you." He is the Knower of the unseen. Not an atom's weight escapes Him, be it in the heavens or the earth, nor what is smaller than that or larger. All are but in a clear Record,

[34:4] so that He may reward those who believed and did good deeds. They shall have forgiveness and a generous reward.

[34:5] And those who strove to thwart Our revelations, they shall have the punishment of a painful affliction.

[34:6] Those who have been given the knowledge can see that what has been brought down to you from your Lord is the truth and that it guides to the path of the Dignified, the Praiseworthy.

[34:7] Those who disbelieved said, "Shall we direct you to a man who will inform you that when you have been totally torn to pieces, you will be created anew?

[34:8] Has he fabricated lies about God, or is there madness in him?" Not so! Those who do not believe in the Hereafter have incurred the punishment and are in extreme misguidance.

[34:9] Have they not seen that which lies before them and behind them of the heaven and the earth? If We will, We can make the earth swallow them up or make lumps from the sky fall down upon them. Indeed, in that is a sign for every servant who turns to God.

[34:10] We bestowed upon David favour from Us: "O mountains and birds, echo with him." We rendered iron malleable for him:

Footnote 34:10 - The words 'echo with him' are given clarification in 38:18 in which we read that the mountains were ordained to glorify God along with David. Recent scientific experiments have indicated that everything around us has awareness, even objects we normally consider to be dead matter. In one such experiment, it was demonstrated that water has memory and awareness and that it communicates with other bodies of water. Such discoveries indicate that the words in 34:10 are not allegorical as previously thought.

• --------------------------------------------------[34:11] "Make suits of armour and measure the links precisely, and do good deeds. I am Seer of what you do."

[34:12] And for Solomon, We subjected the wind. Its outward journey was one month, and its return journey was one month, and We caused a spring of molten copper to flow for him. And of the jinn, some worked for him by his Lord's permission. If any of them was to deviate from Our commands, We would let him taste the punishment of the Blaze.

[34:13] They made for him whatever he wanted: sanctuaries, statues, bowls like pools, and cauldrons fixed to the ground. "O family of David, work and give thanks." Only a few of My servants are thankful.

[34:14] Then, when We decreed death for him, nothing informed them of his death other than the earthly creature that started eating his staff. Then when he fell down, the jinn realised that had they known the unseen, they would not have remained in the humiliating punishment.

[34:15] There was a sign for Sheba in their homeland: two gardens, on the right and on the left, "Eat from your Lord's provisions, and thank Him for a good land and a forgiving Lord."

[34:16] Yet they turned away, and so We unleashed upon them the overwhelming torrent, and We replaced their two gardens with two gardens containing bitter tasting food, tamarisk and some sparse lote-trees.