﴿ ٱسْتِكْبَارًۭا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَكْرَ ٱلسَّيِّئِ ۚ وَلَا يَحِيقُ ٱلْمَكْرُ ٱلسَّيِّئُ إِلَّا بِأَهْلِهِۦ ۚ فَهَلْ يَنظُرُونَ إِلَّا سُنَّتَ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ ۚ فَلَن تَجِدَ لِسُنَّتِ ٱللَّهِ تَبْدِيلًۭا ۖ وَلَن تَجِدَ لِسُنَّتِ ٱللَّهِ تَحْوِيلًا ﴾

“their arro­gant behaviour on earth, and their devising of evil [arguments against God’s messages]. Yet [in the end,] such evil scheming will engulf none but its authors: and can they expect anything but [to be made to go] the way of those [sinners] of olden times? Thus [it is]: no change wilt thou ever find in God’s way; yea, no deviation wilt thou ever find in God’s way!”

acting with disdain in the land against faith istikbāran fī’l-ardi an object denoting reason and devising acts of evil in the way of idolatry and otherwise; and evil schemes will beset surround only their authors namely the one who devises such evil the qualifying of makr ‘scheme’ with the noun al-sayyi’ ‘evil’ is intrinsic to the fact that it is a scheme and so the annexation of the former to the latter is said to be alternative usage in which the annexed term is implied as a precaution against annexing a noun to an adjective. So do they expect do they await anything but the precedent of the ancients? God’s way of dealing with them such as chastising them for their denial of the messengers? Yet you will never find any change in God’s precedent and you will never find any revision in God’s precedent that is to say chastisement is never replaced by anything else nor is it ever meted out other than to the one who deserves it.