পৃষ্ঠা 162 صفحة ١٦٢

His people’s arrogant leaders said, ‘Shuayb, we will expel you and your fellow believers from our town unless you return to our religion.’ He said, ‘What! Even if we detest it?

If we were to return to your religion after God has saved us from it, we would be inventing lies about Him: there is no way we could return to it- unless by the will of God our Lord: in His knowledge He comprehends everything. We put our trust in God. Our Lord, expose the truth [and judge] between us and our people, for You are the best judge.’

The disbelieving leaders among his people said, ‘You will certainly be losers if you follow Shuayb’-

an earthquake seized them: by the next morning they were lying dead in their homes;

it was as if those who had rejected Shuayb had never lived there; it was those who had rejected Shuayb who were the losers-

so he turned away from them, saying, ‘My people, I delivered my Lord’s messages to you and gave you sincere advice, so why should I grieve for people who refused to believe?’

Whenever We sent a prophet to a town, We afflicted its [disbelieving] people with suffering and hardships, so that they might humble themselves [before God],

and then We changed their hardship into prosperity, until they multiplied. But then they said, ‘Hardship and affluence also befell our forefathers,’ and so We took them suddenly, unawares.