﴿ إِذَا تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْهِ ءَايَٰتُنَا قَالَ أَسَٰطِيرُ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ ﴾

“that, whenever Our messages are conveyed to him, such a one says, "Fables of ancient times"?”

When Our signs — the Qur’ān — are recited to him he says that they are merely ‘Fables of the ancients!’ in other words he denies them in arrogance on account of the mentioned things which We have bestowed on him out of Our grace a variant reading for an of the previous verse has the interrogative a-an.