The Believers
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[23:24]
But the great ones among his people, who refused to acknowledge the truth, replied: "This [man] is nothing but a mortal like yourselves who wants to make himself superior to you! For if God had willed [to convey a message unto us], He would surely have sent down angels; [moreover,] we have never heard [anything like] this from our forebears of old!

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* v.24 : Lit., “in connection with (fī) our early forebears” – a Qur’anic allusion to the fact that people often reject a new ethical proposition on no better grounds than that it conflicts with their “inherited” habits of thought and ways of life. Indirectly, this allusion implies a condemnation of all blind taqlīd, i.e., an unthinking acceptance of religious doctrines or assertions which are not unequivocally supported by divine revelation, the explicit teachings of a prophet, or the evidence of unprejudiced reason.