﴿ وَكَذَّبَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ وَمَا بَلَغُوا۟ مِعْشَارَ مَآ ءَاتَيْنَٰهُمْ فَكَذَّبُوا۟ رُسُلِى ۖ فَكَيْفَ كَانَ نَكِيرِ ﴾

“Thus, too, gave the lie to the truth [many of] those who lived before them; and although those [earlier people] had not attained to even a tenth of [the evidence of the truth] which We have vouch­safed unto these [late successors of theirs], yet when they gave the lie to My apostles, how awesome was My rejection!”

The Quran presented clear arguments to its opponents which they were unable to counter. In spite of this, they were successful in dissuading the common people from accepting the truth. The sole reason for this success was that the disbelievers played on the sentiments of the common people and stirred them up by saying that it (the Quran’s message) was against the traditions of their forefathers. The miraculous literary value of the Quran was undeniable, and therefore, attempts were made to convince people that its supposed greatness depended solely on magical feats of expression which had nothing to do with divine revelation; it was only a miracle of penmanship and not the result of the knowledge of reality. It is most interesting that as a matter of historical record, for people of every period, prejudice has proved stronger than rational arguments. The Quran’s addressees could have put forward rational arguments to reject it or they could have referred to any other divine scriptures from which a contradiction to the Quran could have been produced. But none took recourse to either of these possibilities. If people so blatantly deny the call for Truth, it is due to nothing but stubbornness.