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X, 33-41.
THE CHAPTER OF JONAH.
197
after the truth but error ? how then can ye turn away?
Thus is the word of thy Lord verified against those who commit abomination ; verily, they will not believe. Say, 'Is there any of your associates who can produce a creature and then turn it back again?' Say, 'God produces a creature, then turns it back again ; how then can ye lie?' [35] Say, 'Is there any of your associates who guides unto the truth ?' Say, God guides unto the truth! Is then He who guides unto the truth more worthy to be followed, or he that guides not except he be himself guided? What ails you then, how ye judge ?
But most of them follow only suspicion ; verily, suspicion does not avail against the truth at all ; verily, God knows what they do.
This Qur'ân could not have been devised by any beside God; but it verifies that which was before it, and details the Book—there is no doubt therein— from the Lord of the worlds.
Do they say, 'Hel hath devised it ?' say then, * Bring a sûrah like it, -- and call, if ye can, on other than God, if ye do tell the truth !
[40] Yet they call that a lie, the knowledge of which they cannot compass, while its interpretation has not yet come to them; so did those before them charge with lying, and see what was the end of the unjust!
Of them are some who believe therein; and of them are some who do not believe therein ; but thy Lord knows best who are corrupters.
1 I.e. Mohammed.
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