They that is the disbelievers of Mecca have sworn by God the most earnest oaths that if there came to them a sign of what they requested they will believe in it. Say to them ‘Signs are only with God’ and He sends them down as and when He wills; I am but a warner. But what will make you realise? how would you know if they have believed if these signs did come to them? In other words you would not know this; truly when they come they will not believe because of what I already know a variant reading for lā yu’minūna ‘they will not believe’ has lā tu’minūna ‘you will not believe’ making the address to the disbelievers; another variant reading has annahā instead of innahā ‘that truly’ as meaning la‘alla ‘that perhaps’ or as governed by the preceding clause la’in jā’athum āyatun ‘if there came to them a sign’.
