Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
‘We indeed disbelieve in what you are sent with.’
25 Thereupon We took vengeance on them;
so observe how was the fate of the deniers.
26 When Abraham said to his father and his people,
‘I repudiate what you worship,
27 excepting Him who originated me;
indeed He will guide me.’
28 And He made it 1 a lasting word
among his posterity
so that they may come back [to the right path].
29 Rather I provided for these 2 and their fathers
until there came to them the truth
and a manifest apostle.
30 But when the truth came to them, they said,
‘This is magic, and we indeed disbelieve in it.’
31 And they said, ‘Why was not this Qur’ān sent down
to some great man from the two cities?’3
32 Is it they who dispense the mercy of your Lord?
It is We who have dispensed among them
their livelihood in the present life,
and raised some of them above others in rank,
so that some may take others into service,
and your Lord’s mercy is better than what they amass.
33 Were it not [for the danger] that mankind would be
1 That is, the word of tawḥīd, ‘There is no god except Allah,’ the monotheistic creed of Abraham, or, in accordance with the traditions of the Imams Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq (‘a) Abraham’s imamate (cf. 2:124; Tafsīr al-Ṣāfī, Majma‘ al-Bayān).
2 That is, the Arabs.
3 That is, Makkah and Madinah, which were the two major towns of Arabia at that time.
