Even with the cavalry snorting,
and the sparks flying
as the zealots at dawn
make the dust rise
as they pass through the midst of the host...
Really, humanity is ungrateful to its Master.
They themselves prove this:
their own love of wealth is intense.
Do they not understand that when the graves are emptied
and what is in their hearts is revealed,
of course, their Master will know everything?
Commentary
This is a particularly difficult surah to translate due to some very unusual vocabulary ('zealots' is an imaginative guess for a word that features only once in the entire Qur'an) and some very tight repetitive rhymes.
The poetic scheme in this surah includes both internal and end rhyme:
Three lines of -ati ... -han.
Two lines consisting of -n ... bihi ... -'an.
A single transitional line of -ood.
Two lines then ending in -eed.
Two lines of ma fee ... -oor (a nice parallel: 'what is in graves/heart')
And a final line ending -eer.
What this surah appears to do is to juxtapose the successes of a raiding party with a lack of gratitude for the divine aid that brought it about.
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