Selections from the Qur'an

Chapter One

In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful, praise God,
Lord of the worlds, the compassionate, the merciful, master of the day of judgment.
You it is we worship; you it is to whom we turn for aid.
Guide us along the right path, the path of those whom you have blessed,
not those who have drawn your anger, nor those who have lost their way.

Chapter Two, Verse 255

God: no God is thee save Him, the living, the eternally everlasting.
Never is He overtaken by drowsiness or sleep.
To Him belongs everything in the heavens and on the earth.
Who has power to intercede with Him unless He grants permission?
He knows that which is apparent to humankind and that which is obscured from them.
They cannot attain even a portion of
His knowledge except insofar as He wishes them to.
His throne extends over the heavens and the earth;
the sustaining of them does not weary Him.
He is the exalted, the mighty.

Chapter Twenty-four, Verses 35–36

God is the light of the heavens and of the earth.
His light may be likened to a lamp-niche; within it is a lamp.
The lamp is within a glass.
The glass is like a glittering star, which is enkindled from a blessed tree,
neither of the east nor of the west.
Its oil gives light almost of itself, even if untouched by fire.
Light upon light, God guides to His light whomever He wills.
He fashions for humankind lessons and words of guidance;
and concerning each and every thing
God is most knowing.
Divine light is enkindled in dwellings that God has permitted to be raised.
Therein is His name recited; therein is He praised, by day and by night.

Translated by David Pinault