Fussilat ("They are Expounded")
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[41:45]
Thus, too, have We vouchsafed revelation unto Moses aforetime, and thereupon disputes arose about it. And [then, as now,] had it not been for a decree that had already gone forth from thy Sustainer, all would indeed have been decided between them [from the outset]. As it is, behold, they [who will not believe in this divine writ] are in grave doubt, amounting to suspicion, about what it portends.

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* v.45 : As was and is the case with the Qur’ān, some people accepted the divine message revealed to Moses, and some rejected it (Zamakhsharī, Rāzī), while others disagreed about the import and application of its tenets (Tabarī).
* For an explanation of this passage, as well as of the above parallel between men’s attitudes towards the earlier scriptures and the Qur’ān, see the second sentence of 10:19 and the corresponding note 29.
* Lit., “about it,” i.e., doubts as to whether the Qur’anic approach to problems of man’s spirit and body – and, in particular, its stress on the essential unity of these twin aspects of human life (cf. note 118 on the first sentence of 2:143) – is justified or not. In a wider sense, these doubts of the deniers of the truth relate to the question of whether religion as such is “beneficial” or “injurious” to human society – a question which is posed and answered by them with a strong bias against all religious faith.