The Quran

Preface

زُيِّنَ لِلنّاسِ حُبُّ الشَّهَواتِ مِنَ النِّساءِ وَالبَنينَ وَالقَناطيرِ المُقَنطَرَةِ مِنَ الذَّهَبِ وَالفِضَّةِ وَالخَيلِ المُسَوَّمَةِ وَالأَنعامِ وَالحَرثِ ۗ ذٰلِكَ مَتاعُ الحَياةِ الدُّنيا ۖ وَاللَّهُ عِندَهُ حُسنُ المَآبِ

Yusuf Ali

Fair in the eyes of men is the love of things they covet¹: Women and sons; Heaped-up hoards of gold and silver; horses branded (for blood and excellence); and (wealth of) cattle and well-tilled land. Such are the possessions of this world?s life; but in nearness to God is the best of the goals (To return to).

The pleasures of this world are first enumerated: women for love; sons for strength and pride; hoarded riches, which procure all luxuries; the best and finest pedigree horses; cattle, the measure of wealth in the ancient world, as well as the means and symbols of good farming in the modern world; and broad acres of well-tilled land. By analogy, we may include, for our mechanised age, machines of all kinds - tractors, motorcars, aeroplanes, the best internal-combustion engines, etc.,etc. In “heaped-up hoards of gold and silver,” the Arabic word translated hoards is qanatir plural of qintar, which literally means a talent of 1,200 ounces of gold. (R).