Translation:
What kept men back from belief when Guidance came to them, was nothing but this: they said, "Has Allah sent a man 2299 (like us) to be (His) Messenger."
What kept men back from belief when Guidance came to them, was nothing but this: they said, "Has Allah sent a man 2299 (like us) to be (His) Messenger."
Translation:
Yet whenever [God's] guidance came to them [through a prophet,] nothing has ever kept people from believing [in him] save this their objection: 111 "Would God have sent a [mere] mortal man as His apostle?"
Yet whenever [God's] guidance came to them [through a prophet,] nothing has ever kept people from believing [in him] save this their objection: 111 "Would God have sent a [mere] mortal man as His apostle?"
Commentary:
111 Lit., "save that they said". The verb qala (as also the noun qawl) is often used tropically in the sense of holding or asserting an opinion or a belief; in the above case it obviously implies a conceptual objection.
111 Lit., "save that they said". The verb qala (as also the noun qawl) is often used tropically in the sense of holding or asserting an opinion or a belief; in the above case it obviously implies a conceptual objection.
2299 When a man is raised to honour and dignity, his brothers rejoice, for it is an honour that reflects its glory on them. But those with evil in their hearts are jealous like their prototype IblTs, (17:61, n. 2251). To such men the mere fact that their own brother receives the grace of Allah is enough to turn them against that brother. Any other reasons they may devise are mere make-believe.