Marked words appear in this translation and in no other English translation of this verse. Common small words and older spellings are not marked. The marks show where the wording differs, not where the meaning does.
They said, "Swear by God to one another that we will attack him and his family by night, and then tell his guardian, 'We did not witness the murder of his family, and we are being truthful.'"
Translation Talal Itani, ClearQuran·Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall1875–1936 · published 1930
They said: Swear one to another by Allah that we verily will attack him and his household by night, and afterward we will surely say unto his friend: We witnessed not the destruction of his household. And lo! we are truthtellers
Sources
Translation Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran·Public domain — copyright term expired
Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran·1930 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work
·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
Edward Henry Palmer1840–1882 · published 1880
Said they, 'Swear to each other by God, we will surely fall on him by night and on his people; then we will surely say unto his next of kin, " We witnessed not the destruction of his people, and we do surely tell the truth
Sources
Translation Edward Henry Palmer, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
They said, "Swear ye to one another by God that we will surely fall on him and on his family by night: then will be say to the avenger of blood, we witnessed not the destruction of his family: and verily we speak the truth
Sources
Translation John Medows Rodwell, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
And they said unto one another, swear ye reciprocally by God, that we will fall upon Saleh and his family by night: And afterwards we will say unto him who hath right to avenge his blood, we were not so much as present at the destruction of his family; and we certainly speak the truth
Sources
Translation George Sale, English translation of the Qur'an·Public domain — copyright term expired
George Sale, English translation of the Qur'an·1734 translation, digital edition of unverified printing·None — public domain work
·Public domain — copyright term expired·retrieved 24 Aug 2026
Other languages (18)Shqip · Albanian
Ata thanë: "Le të betohemi në Allahun se do ta vrasim atë dhe familjen e tij gjatë natës e pastaj do t'u themi të afërmve të tij se ne nuk ishim të pranishëm gjatë vrasjes së familjes së tij dhe se ne njëmend po e themi të vërtetën."
Translated by the team of Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.5
বাংলা · Bengali
তারা পরস্পর আল্লাহর কসম করে বলল: ‘আমরা অবশ্যই রাতের বেলায় তার (সালিহের) উপর ও তার পরিবারের উপর আক্রমণ করব, তারপর তার অভিভাবককে অবশ্যই বলব: ‘আমরা তার পরিবারের ধ্বংসের সময় উপস্থিত ছিলাম না এবং নিশ্চয়ই আমরা সত্যবাদী।’
Translated by the team of Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Dawah Association in Rabwah, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.1.2
Bosanski · Bosnian
“Zakunite se najtežom zakletvom”, rekoše, “da ćemo noću njega i porodicu njegovu ubiti, a onda njegovu najbližem krvnom srodniku reći: ‘Mi nismo prisustvovali pogibiji porodice njegove, mi zaista istinu govorimo.’ ”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 2.0.4
Hrvatski · Croatian
“Zakunite se najtežom zakletvom”, rekoše, “da ćemo noću njega i obitelj njegovu ubiti, a onda njegovu najbližem krvnom srodniku reći: ‘Mi nismo prisustvovali pogibiji porodice njegove, mi zaista istinu govorimo.’”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.1
Fulfulde · Fulani
Ɓe mb'i: Ɓe ngooɗndirii Alla, ma min waalanan mo ka suudu kaŋko e ɓeynguure makko nden refti ma min wi'an jeyɓe mo ɓen; men tawaaka bargol yimɓe makko ɓen, e pellet, menen ko men gooŋɗuɓe".
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.2
ქართული · Georgian
მათ [ამ ცხრა კაცმა] თქვეს ერთმანეთში: «დავიფიცოთ ალლაჰი ერთმანეთის წინაშე, რომ აუცილებლად მივადგებით მას [საალიჰს] და მის ოჯახს ღამით [მოულოდნელად] და მოვსპობთ მათ, შემდეგ კი ვეტყვით მის ნათესავებს: ჩვენ არ ვესწრებოდით მისი ოჯახის დაღუპვას, და ნამდვილად, ჩვენ სიმართლეს ვამბობთ!»
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.7
Deutsch · German
Sie sagten: „Schwört einander bei Allah: Wir werden ganz gewiss ihn (also Salih) und seine Angehörigen nachts überfallen, und hierauf werden wir zu seinem nächsten Verwandten sagen: ,Wir waren bei der Vernichtung seiner Angehörigen nicht zugegen, und wir sind fürwahr Wahrheitssprechende.‘“
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.15
Ελληνικά · Greek
Είπαν: «Ας ορκιστούμε όλοι στον Αλλάχ ότι τη νύχτα θα τον σκοτώσουμε αυτόν (τον Σάλιχ) και την οικογένειά του, έπειτα θα πούμε στον συγγενή του (που θα θέλει την εκδίκηση): «Δεν είδαμε το φόνο (του και) της οικογένειάς του, και είμαστε πράγματι ειλικρινείς».»
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.2
हिन्दी · Hindi
उन्होंने कहा : आपस में अल्लाह की क़सम खाओ कि हम अवश्य ही उसपर और उसके परिवार पर रात में हमला करेंगे, फिर हम अवश्य ही उसके वारिस (उत्तराधिकारी) से कह देंगे : हम उसके परिवार की मृत्यु के समय मौजूद नहीं थे। और निःसंदेह हम अवश्य सच्चे हैं।
Translated by Azizul Haq Al-Omari
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.1.5
Italiano · Italian
Dissero: «Giuriamo su Allāh di eliminare lui e i suoi durante la notte. Poi diremo alla sua gente di non saperne nulla e in verità siamo sinceri».
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.2
Lietuvių · Lithuanian
49. Jie sakė: „Prisiekite vienas kitam Allahu, kad mes surengsime slaptą naktinę jo ir jo šeimos ataką, ir po to mes tikrai sakysime jo artimiems giminėms: „Mes nematėme jo šeimos pražūties, ir tikrai mes sakome tiesą.“
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.8
Afaan Oromoo · Oromo
Ni jedhan Rabbiin waliif kakadhaa isaafi maatii isaa halkan keessa akka balleessinu, eegasii fira isaatiin nijenna ‘nuti ajjeechaa maatii isaa bira hin jirru; nuti dhugaa dubbattoota."
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.0
Русский · Russian
Они сказали: «Поклянитесь друг другу Аллахом, что мы непременно погубим его и его семью ночью, а потом скажем его близкому родичу: “Мы не были свидетелями гибели его семьи, и, воистину, мы — правдивы”».
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.1
Српски · Serbian
„Аллахом се закуните“, рекоше, „да ћемо ноћу и њега и његову породицу да убијемо, а онда његовом сроднику да кажемо: 'Ми нисмо присуствовали погибији његове породице, ми, заиста, истину говоримо.'“
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.4
Kiswahili · Swahili
Wakasema: Apishaneni kwa Mwenyezi Mungu tutamshambulia usiku yeye na ahali zake; kisha tutamwambia mrithi wake: Sisi hatukuona maangamizo ya watu wake, na sisi bila ya shaka tunasema ukweli.
Issued by the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.5
Svenska · Swedish
De sa [till varandra]: ”Låt oss svära vid Gud att vi ska attackera honom och hans familj i natt, och sedan hävda inför hans arvinge: ’Vi var inte närvarande när hans familj dödades, och vi talar verkligen sanning!’”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.2
Türkçe · Turkish
Onlar kendi aralarında Allah adına yemin ederek dediler ki: “Ona ve aile halkına gece baskın yapalım. Sonra da velisine: Biz aile halkının helak edildikleri yere bile tanık olmadık. Biz gerçekten doğru söyleyenlerdeniz, diyelim.”
Translated by the team of the Rowwad Translation Center, in cooperation with the Rabwah Dawah Association, the Islamic Content Service Association in Languages, and the IslamHouse.com website.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.0.4
اردو · Urdu
انہوں نے آپس میں بڑی قسمیں کھا کھا کر عہد کیا کہ رات ہی کو صالح اور اس کے گھر والوں پر ہم چھاپہ ماریں گے[1] ، اور اس کے وارﺛوں سے صاف کہہ دیں گے کہ ہم اس کے اہل کی ہلاکت کے وقت موجود نہ تھے اور ہم بالکل سچے ہیں.[2]
Translated by Muhammad Ibrahim Junagarhi, developed under the supervision of the Rowwad Translation Center. The original translation is available for the purpose of expressing opinion, evaluation, and continuous development.
From QuranEnc.com, version 1.1.3
About these translations
5 cleared translations, newest first, by year of publication, so the modern English comes before the historical ones. That is an ordering by date, not a judgement. Each is shown complete — this platform never excerpts a translation — and each renders under its translator's name. No translation here is marked as the correct one.
Which translations appear here is set by copyright: they are the ones whose rights could be documented and cleared. The selection is not a judgement that these are the best.
About easy-read
Easy-read
Easy-read is a simplified pronunciation,
not authoritative — a rule-by-rule romanisation, not a reading.
Each verse ends in its pause form, as it is said when you stop there. Pauses inside a verse and other tajwid rules are not shown. It is derived from the Tanzil
Simple edition, while the Arabic above is the
Uthmani edition; both are cleared, but they are not the
same edition and their orthography differs.
DIN 31635qālū ṭayyarnā bika wabiman maʿaka qāla ṭāʾirukum ʿinda llāhi bal ʾantum qawmun tuftanūna
The translators word this verse differently
Talal Itani2012 They said, "We consider you an ill omen, and those with you." He said, "Your omen is with God. In fact, you are a people being tested."
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall1930 They said: We augur evil of thee and those with thee. He said: Your evil augury is with Allah. Nay, but ye are folk that are being tested
Edward Henry Palmer1880 They said, 'We have taken an augury concerning thee and those who are with thee.' Said he, 'Your augury is in God's hands; nay, but ye are a people who are tried
John Medows Rodwell1861 They said,"We augur ill concerning thee and those who are with thee." He said, "The ills of which ye augur depend on God. But ye are a people on your trial
George Sale1734 They answered, we presage evil from thee, and from those who are with thee. Saleh replied, the evil which ye presage is with God: But ye are a people who are proved by a vicissitude of prosperity and adversity
DIN 31635fānẓur kayfa kāna ʿāqibatu makrihim ʾannā dammarnāhum waqawmahum ʾaǧmaʿīna
Talal Itani2012 So note the outcome of their planning; We destroyed them and their people, altogether.
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall1930 Then see the nature of the consequence of their plotting, for lo! We destroyed them and their people, every one
Edward Henry Palmer1880 Behold, how was the end of their plot, that we destroyed them and their people all together
John Medows Rodwell1861 And see what was the end of their device! We destroyed them and their whole people
George Sale1734 And see what was the issue of their plot: We utterly destroyed them and their whole people
These figures count the words the translations share. They measure wording, not meaning, and they do not say which translation is right.
Derived measure: mean pairwise Jaccard distance over the
lowercased word sets of the 5 renderings above —
0.57 on a scale
where 0 means identical wording and 1 means no shared words. It is
computed, not judged.
The page says a verse is worded differently only above the cut below. The cut is a stated convention, not a property of the text, and it can be changed.
The cut
0.644
Share of measured verses above it
33%
Verses above it
2,079
Verses measured
6,236
Talal Itani · Edward Henry Palmer0.65
Edward Henry Palmer · George Sale0.65
Talal Itani · George Sale0.65
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · George Sale0.62
Edward Henry Palmer · Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall0.59
Talal Itani · Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall0.56
Talal Itani · John Medows Rodwell0.55
Edward Henry Palmer · John Medows Rodwell0.48
Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · John Medows Rodwell0.48
John Medows Rodwell · George Sale0.47
One bar per pair of renderings, longest bar for the pair
sharing fewest words. Every pair is shown; none is singled out.
Method Wording differences — derived 13 September 2026
Method
Mean pairwise Jaccard distance over the lowercased word sets of the cleared translations of each verse. A verse is marked as worded differently when its score falls in the top third of the corpus — the cut set out in Analysis details.
As at
13 September 2026, 10:56 UTC
Gate
verify/divergence_gate.py re-derives and fails on drift
The platform does not say which is right, and does not
characterise what the difference means. The renderings are placed
together so the difference is visible; reading it is the reader's work.
Sources, editions and licences for everything above
ReceiptsSource fact
7 sources
stand behind this page. Each is listed once, in the order the page first
cites it, with the licence it was cleared under and what was actually read.
Nothing on this page rests on a source that is not here.
Source Tanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) · Uthmani, Version 1.1
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 ayahs. The bismillah is delivered as a separate `bismillah` attribute on ayah 1 and is NOT fused into the ayah text. 112 surahs carry one: every surah except al-Fatiha, where the bismillah is ayah 1:1 itself, and at-Tawba, which has none. Sourced from the XML output; the plain-text output of the same release DOES fuse it, which is defect D1.
CLEARED. Licence read verbatim from the block embedded in this very file. Ingested exactly as shipped: no normalisation, no stripping of marks, no Unicode recomposition.
Parsed structurally from the EPUB: an h3 names the surah, one p per verse with its number in its own span. An unnumbered p is the basmala and is not a verse, except in surah 1 where the basmala IS verse 1. 112 unnumbered paragraphs were found, which is 114 surahs less surah 1 and surah 9. Text is stored VERBATIM: NFC normalisation and XML entity unescaping only, because CC BY-ND forbids modification.
CLEARED on a licence read first-hand from the translator's own download page, not from an aggregator. Tanzil also hosts this translation, but under a blanket "non-commercial purposes only" term that directs the user to the translator or publisher for permission - a hosting disclaimer, not a grant - so the grant was taken from the licensor directly. The "God" edition was ingested; ClearQuran also publishes an "Allah" edition, differing in how the divine name is rendered, which is not ingested.
CLEARED ON THE WORK, WITH TWO RECORDED CAVEATS ON THIS COPY. (1) Rights basis is the expired copyright term, NOT the redistributing repository's licence. That repository dedicates its contents to the public domain under the Unlicense while also redistributing plainly in-copyright translations (Abdel Haleem, Saheeh International, The Study Quran), so it is dedicating rights it cannot hold and its blanket grant is not relied upon here. (2) The file declares its own upstream as tanzil.net, and Tanzil attaches a non-commercial condition to its TRANSLATION distributions, though not to its Qur'anic text. Since Pickthall's copyright has expired, nobody holds rights in these words and no licence is required from anyone; Tanzil's terms are a contract binding those who download from Tanzil, which we did not. The chain is nonetheless not spotless and Anwar may prefer a clean digitisation of the 1930 printing. NOT VERIFIED: that this digital text matches the 1930 first printing rather than a later revised edition. No page images were collated. Recorded as unverified rather than presented as established. SERVED TEXT DIFFERS FROM THE CITED FILE AT ONE VERSE, 37:97: the file reads "red-hotfire" (a glued token, also in Gutenberg #16955); the served row reads "red-hot fire", restored 2026-09-13 from Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (London: George Allen & Unwin, printed for Alfred A. Knopf; 1930), p. 460, XXXVII 97 - scan archive.org in.ernet.dli.2015.216140, PDF page 475; banked data/derivation-sources/pickthall-1930-dli-2015.216140-text.pdf (sha256 70e81146c97fa3a590243a82e04e349108546074787e2551a78c616202138870) on Anwar Malik's grant.
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 verses, keyed to mushaf order. The
bismillah is not fused into ayah 1: 1:1 carries it and no other verse
does. Verified against content check C3 at ingest.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. The digital edition's upstream is not stated by the redistributor and the printing is unverified. No statement of purpose is recorded for Palmer because none was sourced from his own preface in this pass; nothing is asserted on his behalf.
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 verses, keyed to mushaf order. The
bismillah is not fused into ayah 1: 1:1 carries it and no other verse
does. Verified against content check C3 at ingest.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. TWO edition caveats. (1) The upstream is not stated by the redistributor. (2) Rodwell's own edition PRESENTS THE SURAHS IN HIS OWN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, not the mushaf order — he says so in his preface. This digital text is keyed to mushaf order, so it derives from a restored-order printing (such as the Everyman edition) rather than from Rodwell's own arrangement. Which printing is not stated and has not been established.
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 verses, keyed to mushaf order. The
bismillah is not fused into ayah 1: 1:1 carries it and no other verse
does. Verified against content check C3 at ingest.
CLEARED ON THE WORK. Term expired by every measure. The digital edition's upstream is NOT STATED by the redistributor, so the printing it represents is unverified; Sale's text was reprinted and re-edited many times between 1734 and 1900. Recorded as unverified rather than assumed to be the first edition.
Hafs/Kufan verse numbering, 6236 ayahs. The bismillah is delivered as a separate `bismillah` attribute on ayah 1 and is NOT fused into the ayah text. 112 surahs carry one: every surah except al-Fatiha, where the bismillah is ayah 1:1 itself, and at-Tawba, which has none. Sourced from the XML output; the plain-text output of the same release DOES fuse it, which is defect D1.
CLEARED. Parallel edition, held in ayah_text_variants. It sits alongside the Uthmani spine for search normalisation and is never used to correct it.