Al-Kafirun

Say: ‘O disbelievers!

I do not worship, at present, what you worship, of idols,

and you do not worship, at present, what I worship, and that is God, exalted be He, alone,

nor will I worship, in the future, what you have worshipped,

nor will you worship, in the future, what I worship: God knew that they would never become believers (the use of [the inanimate] mā, ‘what’, to refer to God is meant to counter [the reference to ‘what thing’ they worship]).

You have your religion, idolatry, and I have a religion’, Islam: this was [revealed] before he was commanded to wage war [against the idolaters] (all seven Qur’ānic readers omit the yā’ of the genitive possessive construction [in wa-liya dīni] whether with a pause or without; Ya‘qūb, however, retains it in both cases).