﴿ وَٱضْرِبْ لَهُم مَّثَلًا أَصْحَٰبَ ٱلْقَرْيَةِ إِذْ جَآءَهَا ٱلْمُرْسَلُونَ ﴾

“AND SET FORTH unto them a parable - [the story of how] the people of a township [behaved] when [Our] message-bearers came unto them.”

And strike for them as a similitude mathalan is the first direct object the inhabitants ashāba is the second direct object of the town of Antioch Antākya when the messengers namely Jesus’s disciples came to it idh jā’ahā’l-mursalūna is an inclusive substitution for ashāba’l-qaryati ‘the inhabitants of the town’.