Аль-Анам 6:66–123

Your people have denied it, the Qur’ān. Yet it is the truth. Say, to them: ‘I am not a guardian over you, to requite you. I am only a warner and your affair is left to God — this was [revealed] before the command to fight [the idolaters].

Every tiding, [every] announcement, has a conclusion, a [fixed] time in which it will take place and be concluded, including [the tiding concerning] your punishment. And you will come to know’ — this is a threat for them.

When you see those who engage in discourse about Our signs, the Qur’ān, in mockery, turn away from them, and do not sit with them, until they discourse on some other topic. And if (immā: the letter nūn of the conditional particle in has been assimilated with the extra mā) Satan should make you forget (read yunsiyannaka or yunassiyannaka), and you sit with them, then do not sit, after the reminder, that is, [after] you remember, with the evildoing folk (the overt noun [al-qawm al-zālimīn, ‘the evildoing folk’] replaces the [third person] pronominalisation).

The Muslims then said, ‘If we get up [and leave] every time they delve [into the matter of the Qur’ān], we would never be able to sit in the Mosque or perform circumambulations. Therefore, the following was revealed: Those who fear God, are not accountable for them, [for] those who discourse [in mockery], in anything (min shay’in: min is extra), if they should sit with them; but it is the reminder, that they are accountable for; [a reminder given] to make them remember and to admonish them, so that perhaps they will be wary, of discoursing thus.

And forsake, leave alone, those who take their religion, with which they have been charged, as a game and a diversion, making a mockery of it, and whom the life of this world has deluded, and so do not interfere with them — this was [revealed] before the command to fight [them]. Remind, admonish people, thereby, by the Qur’ān, lest a soul perish, [lest] it be given up for destruction, for what it has earned, what it has done; it has no protector, [no] helper, besides God, other than Him, and no intercessor, to ward off the chastisement from it; and though it offer every compensation, [though] it pay every ransom, it shall not be accepted from it, that which it offers as ransom. Those are the ones who perish by what they have earned; for them shall be a draught of boiling water and a painful chastisement, because they disbelieved, that is, for their unbelief.

Say: ‘Shall we call upon, shall we worship, instead of God, that which neither profits us, if we worship them, nor hurts us, if we neglect [to worship] them — these are the idols; and so be turned back, [and so] return to idolatry, after God has guided us, to Islam? — Like one whom the devils have lured, led astray, in the earth, bewildered, confused, not knowing where to go (hayrān, ‘bewildered’, is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the [suffixed pronoun] hā’ [of istahwat-hu, ‘whom they have lured’]); he has companions, a group, who call him to guidance, that is to say, [they are there] in order to guide him to the [right] path, saying to him: “Come to us!”’, but he does not respond to them, and he perishes (the interrogative statement is meant as a disavowal; the comparative statement [beginning with ka’lladhī, ‘like one whom’] is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject [of the verb] nuraddu, ‘be turned back’). Say: ‘Truly, God’s guidance, which is Islam, is [the true] guidance, everything else being error, and we have been commanded to submit to the Lord of the Worlds,

and to, that is, [to submit] by, establishing prayer and fearing Him, exalted be He; He it is to Whom you shall be gathered’, you shall be brought together, on the Day of Resurrection for reckoning.

He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in truth, that is to say, with the purpose of [manifesting] truth. And, mention, the day He says, to a thing, ‘Be’, and it is — this is the Day of Resurrection, when He says to creatures, ‘Rise up’, and they do. His words are the truth, the truth that will doubtless come to pass; and His is the Kingdom the day when the trumpet, the horn, is blown, the second blast by [the angel] Isrāfīl, when there shall be no kingdom for any other than Him: ‘Whose is the Kingdom today? God’s’ [Q. 40:16]. He is the Knower of the Unseen and the visible, what is hidden and what may be seen. He is the Wise, in His creation, the Aware, of things inwardly hidden and outwardly manifest.

And, mention, when Abraham said to his father Āzar, which was his cognomen, his [first] name being Terah (Tārikh): ‘Do you take idols as gods, to worship? (an interrogative meant as a rebuke). I see you and your people, by [this act of] taking them [as gods], in manifest error’, far from the truth.

And so, just as We show him the misguidance of his father and his people, We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, that he might infer thereby [the truth of] Our Oneness, and that he might be of those knowing, it, with certainty (the sentence beginning with wa-kadhālika, ‘and so’, and what follows it, is a parenthetical statement and a supplement to [the one beginning with] qāla, ‘he said’).

When night descended, [when] it darkened, upon him he saw a star — said to have been Venus — and said, to his people, who were astrologers: ‘This is my Lord’, as you [are wont to] claim. But when it set, when it disappeared, he said, ‘I love not those that set’, to take them as lords, because it is not possible for a [true] Lord to be transformed or to change place, as such [attributes] pertain to accidents — but this had no effect on them.

And when he saw the moon rising, appearing, he said, to them: ‘This is my Lord.’ But when it set he said, ‘Unless my Lord guides me, [unless] He establishes me within [true] guidance, I shall surely become one of the folk who are astray’ — an intimation to his people that they are astray, but still this had no effect on them.

And when he saw the sun rising, he said, ‘This is my Lord; this is greater!’ than the star and the moon (the masculine [demonstrative pronoun] hādhā, ‘this’, is used [for the feminine shams, ‘sun’] because the predicate [rabbī, ‘my Lord’] is masculine). But when it set, and the argument against them had become stronger and they still had not repented, he said, ‘O my people, surely I am innocent of what you associate, with God, in the way of idols and accidental bodies, which require an originator. They then asked him, ‘What do you worship?’

He said: Verily I have turned my face to, I am seeking in worship, Him Who originated, created, the heavens and the earth, namely, God; a hanīf, inclining towards the upright religion, and I am not of those that associate others’, with Him.

But his people disputed with him, they argued with him about his religion and threatened him that the idols would strike him with evil if he abandoned them. He said, ‘Do you dispute with me (read a-tuhājjūnnī, or a-tuhājūnī where one of the two letters nūn is omitted, the nūn which grammarians refer to as nūn al-raf‘, ‘the nūn of [modal] independence’, and which the Qur’ānic reciters refer to as nūn al-wiqāya, ‘the nūn of preservation’); do you argue with me, concerning, the Oneness of, God when He, exalted be He, has guided me, to it? I have no fear of what you associate with Him, in the way of idols, that they might strike me with some evil, since they have no power to do anything, unless my Lord wills something, harmful to befall me and it does. My Lord encompasses all things through His knowledge; will you not remember, this and believe?

How should I fear what you have associated, with God, when it can neither profit nor harm, and you fear not, God [in], that you have associated with God, in worship, that for which He has not revealed to you any warrant?’, [any] argument or proof, when He has power over all things. Which of the two parties has more right to security, is it us or you, if you have any knowledge, of who has more right? In other words: it is us, so follow Him. God, exalted be He, says:

Those who believe and have not confounded, mixed, their belief with evildoing, that is, idolatry — explained as such by a hadīth in the two Sahīhs [of Bukhārī and Muslim] — theirs is security, from chastisement; and they are rightly guided.

That (tilka is the subject [of the sentence] and is substituted by [the following hujjatunā]) argument of Ours, with which Abraham inferred God’s Oneness, as in the case of the setting stars and what came afterwards; (the predicate is [what follows]) We bestowed upon Abraham, We guided him to it, as an argument, against his people. We raise up in degrees whom We will (read this as [a genitive] annexation, darajāti man nashā’, or as [accusative] nunation, darajātin man nashā’), [degrees] in knowledge and wisdom; surely your Lord is Wise, in His actions, Knowing, of His creation.

And We bestowed upon him Isaac and, his son, Jacob; each one, of the two, We guided. And Noah We guided before, that is, before Abraham, and of his seed, that is, Noah’s [seed], David and, his son, Solomon, and Job and Joseph, son of Jacob, and Moses and Aaron; and so, in the same way that We have requited them, We requite the virtuous.

And Zachariah and, his son, John, and Jesus, son of Mary — this shows that [the term] ‘seed’ (dhurriyya) can include offspring from the female [side] — and Elias, the paternal nephew of Aaron, brother of Moses; all, of them, were of the righteous.

And Ishmael, son of Abraham, and Elisha (Ilyasa‘, the lām is extra), and Jonah and Lot, son of Hārān, brother of Abraham, all, of them, We preferred above all the worlds, through prophethood.

And of their fathers, and of their seed, and of their brethren (this [clause] is a supplement either to [the previous] kullan, ‘all of them’, or to Nūhan, ‘Noah’; min, ‘of’, is partitive, because some of them did not have offspring, while others had disbelievers among their offspring); and We chose them and We guided them to a straight path.

That, religion to which they were guided, is God’s guidance wherewith He guides whom He will of His servants; had they, hypothetically speaking, been idolaters, all that they did would have been in vain.

They are the ones to whom We gave the Scripture, meaning the Books [of God], judgement, wisdom, and prophethood; so if these, people of Mecca, disbelieve therein, that is, in these three, then indeed We have entrusted it to, We have set aside for it, a people who do not disbelieve in it, namely, the Emigrants (Muhājirūn) and the Helpers (Ansār).

They are the ones whom God has guided; so follow their guidance, their way of affirming God’s Oneness and of [exercising] patience (read iqtadih, ‘follow’, with the silent hā’, whether pausing or continuing the recitation; a variant reading omits it in continuous recitation). Say, to the people of Mecca: ‘I do not ask of you, to give me, any wage for it, the Qur’ān; it, the Qur’ān, is only a reminder, an admonition, to all the worlds’, of mankind and jinn.

They, that is, the Jews, measured not God with His true measure, that is, they have not extended Him the grandeur that truly befits Him, or [it means] they have not attained the true knowledge of Him, when they said, to the Prophet (s), disputing with him about the Qur’ān: ‘God has not revealed anything to any mortal.’ Say, to them: ‘Who revealed the Book which Moses brought, a light and guidance for mankind? You put it (in all three instances [the verbs may be] read either in the third person plural [yaj‘alūnahu, ‘they put it’; yubdūnahā, ‘they reveal it’; wa-yukhfūna, ‘and they hide’] or in the second person plural [taj‘alūnahu, ‘you put it’; tubdūnahā, ‘you reveal it’; wa-tukhfūna, ‘and you hide’]) on parchments, that is, you write it down on fragments of notes, which you disclose, that is, what you choose to disclose thereof, but you hide much, of what is in them, as in [the case of] the descriptions of Muhammad (s); and you have been taught, O Jews, in the Qur’ān, what you did not know, neither you nor your fathers’, in the Torah, through the elucidation therein of what you were confused about and in disagreement over. Say: ‘God’, revealed it — and if they do not say it, there is no other response — then leave them to play in their discourse, their falsehood.

And this, Qur’ān, is a blessed Book We have revealed, confirming that which was before it, of scriptures, and that you may warn (li-tundhira, or read li-yundhira, ‘that it may warn’, as supplement to the import of the preceding statement [sc. ‘to confirm that which was before it and to warn’]), in other words, We have revealed it for [the] blessings [it gives], as a vindication [of previous scripture] and for you to warn therewith, the Mother of Towns and those around it, that is, the inhabitants of Mecca and all other people; and those who believe in the Hereafter believe in it, and they observe their prayers, fearing the punishment thereof.

And who, that is, none, does greater evil than he who invents lies against God, by claiming prophethood when he has not been called to it, or who says, ‘It is revealed to me’, when nothing has been revealed to him — this was revealed regarding [the false prophet] Musaylama [al-Kadhdhāb] — or he who says, ‘I will reveal the like of what God has revealed’? — these were the mockers who would say: If we wish we can speak the like of this [Q. 8:31]; If you could only see, O Muhammad (s), when the, mentioned, evildoers are in the agonies, the throes, of death and the angels extend their hands, against them, beating and torturing them, saying to them in stern censure: ‘Give up your souls!, to us that we may seize them. Today you shall be requited with the chastisement of humiliation because you used to say about God other than the truth, of claiming prophethood and inspiration falsely, and that you used to scorn His signs’, disdaining to believe in them. The response to the conditional [statement beginning with] law, ‘if [you could only see]’, is: ‘you would be seeing a terrifying thing’.

And, it is said to them upon their resurrection: ‘And now you have come to Us singly, each alone without family, possessions or children, as We created you the first time, that is, barefoot, naked and with foreskins, and you have left what We conferred on you, of wealth, behind your backs, in the world, without you having any choice; and — it is said to them in rebuke — We do not see with you your intercessors, the idols, whom you claimed to be associates, of God, amongst you, that is, in deserving your worship; it has been severed between you, that is to say, your bond has been dissolved (a variant reading [for baynukum, ‘your union’] has baynakum, ‘between you’, making it an adverbial qualifier, that is, the bond ‘between you’ [has been severed]’), and that, intercession of theirs, which you claimed, in the world, has failed, abandoned, you’.

God it is Who splits the grain, from the plants, and the date-stone, from the palm-trees. He brings forth the living from the dead, such as the human being from the sperm, and the bird from the egg; and is the Bringer-forth of the dead, the sperm and the egg, from the living. That, Splitter and Bringer-forth, is God. How then are you deluded?, so how then are you turned away from faith, despite the proof being established?

He is the Cleaver of the daybreak (al-isbāh is the verbal noun, meaning al-subh, ‘dawn’), in other words, He splits the morning shaft, the first light that appears after the darkness of night, and He has appointed the night for stillness, in which creatures rest from toil, and the sun and the moon (read both in the accusative, wa’l-shamsa wa’l-qamara, as a supplement to the [syntactical] status of al-layla, ‘the night’) for reckoning, for the calculation of [periods of] time (or [if the prefixed preposition] bā’ is [considered to have been] omitted [bi-husbān], making it [husbān] a circumstantial qualifier referring to an implied verb [such as yajriyān, ‘they follow courses’], that is, ‘they follow courses precisely calculated [bi-husbān]’, as is stated in the verse of [sūrat] al-Rahmān [Q. 55:5]).That, mentioned, is the ordaining of the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Knowing, of His creation.

And He it is Who appointed for you the stars that you may guide your course by them amid the darkness of land and sea, when travelling. Verily We have distinguished, We have elucidated, the signs, the proofs of Our power, for a people who have knowledge, [a people] who reflect.

And He it is Who produced you, created you, from a single soul, namely, Adam, such that some, of you, are established, in the womb, and some, of you, are deposited, in the loins (a variant reading [of mustaqirrun, ‘established’] has mustaqarrun, that is, a resting place for you). Verily We have distinguished the signs for a people who understand, what is being said to them.

And He it is Who sent down water from the heaven and therewith, with the water, We bring forth (there is a shift away from the third [to the second person in this address]) plants of every kind, that produces shoots, and therefrom, from the shoots, We bring forth, some, verdure, meaning ‘the greens’ [in other words, vegetation], bringing forth from it, from the verdure, thick-clustered grain, in dense clusters — such as the spikes of wheat and the like — and from the palm-tree (wa-mina’l-nakhli is the predicate, and is substituted by [the following, min tal‘ihā, ‘from its pollen’]) from its pollen — that which is the first to be produced by it — spring bunches of dates (qinwānun is the subject of the sentence), stalks with date clusters, bunched up, one near the other, and, We bring forth from it, gardens, orchards, of grapes, and olives, and pomegranates, the leaves of both [of these] being, similar (mushtabihan is a circumstantial qualifier), but, the fruits of which are, not alike. Look, O you addressed, in reflection, upon their fruits (read thamarihi or thumurihi, the plural of thamara, like shajara, ‘tree’, [as plural of] shajar, and khashaba, ‘[a piece of] wood’, for khashab) when they have borne fruit, when this first begins, how it looks, and, [look] upon, their ripening, after they have reached full growth, and the state to which they return. Surely, in all that are signs, proofs of His power, exalted be He, to resurrect and to do all other things, for a people who believe: it is these [people] that are specifically mentioned because they are the ones to profit from those [signs] by their believing in them, in contrast to the disbelievers.

Yet they ascribe to God (li’Llāhi, the indirect object) as associates (shurakā’a, the direct object, which is substituted by [the following, al-jinn]) the jinn, since they obey them by worshipping graven images, even though He created them: so how can they be associates? And they falsely impute to Him (read kharaqū or kharraqū), that is, they invent, sons and daughters without any knowledge, saying, Ezra (‘Uzayr) is the son of God, and the angels are the daughters of God. Glory be to Him — an affirmation of His transcendence — and exalted be He above what they describe!, of Him having a child.

He is, the Originator of the heavens and the earth, which He originated uniquely without precedent; how should He have a son, when He has no consort, spouse, and He created everything, that was meant to be created, and He has knowledge of all things?

That then is God, your Lord. There is no god but Him, the Creator of all things. So worship Him, affirm His Oneness. And He is Guardian over, [He is] Keeper of, all things.

Vision cannot attain Him, that is, they [the eyes] cannot see Him — this is [a denial that applies] in particular [circumstances], since [it is accepted] that the believer will see Him in the Hereafter, as indicated by God’s words, On that Day faces shall be radiant, gazing upon their Lord [Q. 75:22f.], and by the hadīth of the two Shaykhs [Bukhārī and Muslim]: ‘Verily you shall see your Lord, as clearly as you see the full moon at night’) — and it is also said [to mean] that it [vision] cannot encompass Him; but He attains [all] vision, that is to say, He perceives them, whereas they cannot perceive Him; it is not possible in [the case of] anyone other than Him to attain all vision while it [vision] cannot attain Him or encompass Him in knowledge. And He is the Subtle, [in dealing] with His friends, the Aware, of them.

Say, O Muhammad (s), to them: Clear proofs have come to you from your Lord; whoever perceives, them and believes, then it is for his own good, that he has perceived [them], since the reward resulting from his perception will be his; and whoever is blind, to them and goes astray, then it, the evil consequence of his being astray, will be to his own hurt. And I am not a keeper, a watcher, over you, of your deeds: I am but a warner.

And so, in the same way that We have explained what has been mentioned, We dispense, We elucidate, the signs, that they might take heed, and that they, the disbelievers, may say, at the end of this: ‘You have studied with someone’, that you have consulted with (dārasta) the People of the Scripture or [that] you have studied (darasta, variant reading) the scriptures of past peoples and brought this [Qur’ān] therefrom; and that We may make it clear for a people who have knowledge.

Follow what has been revealed to you from your Lord, namely, the Qur’ān. There is no god but Him; and turn away from the idolaters.

Had God willed, they would not have been idolaters; and We have not set you as a keeper over them, a watcher, so that you might then requite them for their deeds; nor are you a guardian over them, so that you might [be able to] coerce them to faith — this was [revealed] before the command to fight [them].

Do not revile those whom they call upon, besides God, namely, the idols, lest they then revile God out of spite, out of aggression and wrongfully, through ignorance, that is, through their ignorance of God. So, in the same way that We have adorned for these that which they practise, We have adorned for every community their, good and evil, deeds, and they commit them; then to their Lord they shall return, in the Hereafter, and He will tell them what they used to do, and requite them for it.

They, that is, the disbelievers of Mecca, have sworn by God the most earnest oaths that if there came to them a sign, of what they requested, they will believe in it. Say, to them: ‘Signs are only with God’, and He sends them down as [and when] He wills; I am but a warner. But what will make you realise?, how would you know if they have believed, if these [signs] did come [to them]? In other words, you would not know this; truly, when they come, they will not believe, because of what I already know (a variant reading [for lā yu’minūna, ‘they will not believe’] has lā tu’minūna, ‘you will not believe’, making the address to the disbelievers; another [variant reading] has annahā [instead of innahā, ‘that truly’] as meaning la‘alla, ‘that perhaps’, or as governed by the preceding clause [la’in jā’athum āyatun, ‘if there came to them a sign’).

And We shall confound their hearts, We shall turn their hearts away from the truth, so that they cannot understand it, and their eyes, away from it, so that they do not see it and thus do not believe; just as they did not believe in it, that is, in the verses that have been revealed, the first time; and We shall leave them in their insolence, in their misguidance, wandering blindly, hesitating, perplexed.

And if We had sent down the angels to them, and the dead had spoken with them, as they have requested, and We had gathered against them all things in droves (read qubulan, plural of qabīl, meaning ‘throng upon throng’, or read qibalan, meaning ‘before their very eyes’), and they were witness to your truthfulness, yet they would not have believed, as God already knows, unless God willed, that they believe and they did; but most of them are ignorant, of this.

And so We have appointed to every Prophet an enemy, just as We have appointed these your enemies (and this [‘adūwwan, ‘an enemy’, is substituted by [the following, shayātīn, ‘devils’]) devils, the rebels, of mankind and jinn who inspire, whisper, fine speech to each other, the falsehood that is disguised as such [fine speech], in delusion, that is, in order to delude them; yet, had your Lord willed, they would never have done it, that mutual inspiration. So leave them, let the disbelievers be, with what they fabricate, of disbelief and otherwise, of what has been adorned for them — this was [revealed] before the command to fight [them].

And that the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter may incline to it (wa-li-tasghā is a supplement to [the above] ghurūran, ‘in delusion’), that is, [to] that fine [speech], and that they may be pleased with it, and that they may acquire, earn, what they are acquiring, of sins, and be punished for it.

The following was revealed when they asked the Prophet (s) to appoint an arbiter between him and themselves. Say: Shall I seek, demand, other than God as a judge, an arbiter between you and me, when it is He Who revealed to you the Book, the Qur’ān, clearly explained?, wherein truth is distinguished from falsehood. Those to whom We have given the Scripture, the Torah, the likes of ‘Abd Allāh b. Salām and his companions, know that it is revealed (read munzal or munazzal) from your Lord in truth; so do not be of the waverers, the doubters, regarding it: this is intended to affirm to the disbelievers that it is the truth.

Perfected is the word of your Lord, in the way of rulings and appointed terms, in truthfulness and justice (sidqan wa-‘adlan is for specification); none can change His words, either by contravening [His rulings] or evading [His appointed terms]. He is the Hearing, of what is said, the Knowing, of what is done.

If you obey most of those on earth, that is, the disbelievers, they will lead you astray from the way of God, [from] His religion; they follow only supposition, when they dispute with you concerning [the status of] carrion, saying: ‘What God has killed is more worthy of your consumption than what you kill yourselves!’; they are merely guessing, speaking falsehood in this [matter].

Your Lord knows best those who stray from His way and He knows well the rightly guided, and will requite both of them.

So eat from that over which God’s Name has been invoked, that is, [that which] has been sacrificed to His Name, if you believe in His signs.

What is wrong with you, that you do not eat from that over which God’s Name has been invoked, of sacrifices, when He has detailed (for both verbs, read the passive [fussila, ‘it has been detailed’, and hurrima, ‘[that which] has been forbidden’] or the active [fassala, ‘He has detailed’, and harrama, ‘[what] He has forbidden’]) for you what He has forbidden, in the verse: Forbidden to you is carrion … [Q. 5:3], except that to which you are compelled?, thereof, which is also lawful for you. The meaning is: there is nothing to prevent you from eating what has been mentioned, for He has explained to you what is forbidden for consumption, and that [over which God’s Name has been invoked] is not among these [forbidden things]. But truly many are led astray (read la-yadillūna, ‘[many] are led astray’, or la-yudillūna, ‘[many] lead [others] astray’), by their whims, by what their own selves fancy, in the way of permitting [the consumption of] carrion and otherwise, without any knowledge, with which to support their claims. Truly your Lord knows the transgressors, those who overstep [the bounds] of what is lawful into what is unlawful.

And forsake, leave, outward aspect of sin and its inward aspect, that is, what is overt of it and what is secret — it is said that ‘sin’ here means fornication, or, it is said, any act of disobedience; surely those who earn sin shall be requited, in the Hereafter, for what they used to perpetrate, [what] they used to earn.

And do not eat from that over which God’s Name has not been invoked, where it has died or been sacrificed to other than His Name — otherwise, what a Muslim sacrifices and does not invoke God’s Name over, whether intentionally or forgetfully, is lawful, as was stated by Ibn ‘Abbās, and this is the opinion of al-Shāfi‘ī — verily it, the eating thereof, is wickedness, a contravention of what is lawful. And truly the devils inspire, whisper [to], their friends, the disbelievers, to dispute with you, in deeming carrion lawful; and if you obey them, in this [matter], you are truly idolaters.

The following was revealed regarding Abū Jahl and others: Why, is he who was dead, through unbelief, and We gave him life, through guidance, and appointed for him a light by which to walk among people, distinguishing thereby the truth from falsehood — this [light] being faith — as him whose likeness (ka-man mathaluhu: mathal, ‘likeness’, is extra; in other words, [read] ka-man huwa, ‘as him who’) is in darkness whence he cannot emerge? — and this is the disbeliever — No! So, in the same way that faith has been adorned for believers, what the disbelievers have been doing, in the way of disbelief and acts of disobedience, has been adorned for them.

And thus, in the same way that We have made the wicked folk of Mecca its leaders, We have made in every city its sinners great ones, that they may plot therein, to impede the faith; but they plot only against themselves, because the evil consequences thereof will befall them, though they do not perceive, this.