أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ حَقَّ عَلَيْهِمُ الْقَوْلُ فِي أُمَمٍ قَدْ خَلَتْ مِن قَبْلِهِم مِّنَ الْجِنِّ وَالْإِنسِ ۖ إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا خَاسِرِينَ (18)
(46:18) It is against such that Allah's sentence (of punishment) has become due. They will join the communities of humans and jinn that have preceded them. Verily all of them will court utter loss. *22
*22) Here, two types of the character have been placed side by side and the listeners asked the silent question as to which of them is better. At that time both these types of character practically existed in the society, and it was not at aII difficult for the people to know where they could find the first type of the character and where the second. This is the answer to this saying of the chiefs of the Quraish: "If it had been any good to believe in this Book, these few youngsters and slaves would not have believed in it before they did." In the light of this answer everyone could see for himself as to what was the character of the believers and what of the unbelievers.