﴿ أَلَمْ يَأْتِكُمْ نَبَؤُا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ قَوْمِ نُوحٍۢ وَعَادٍۢ وَثَمُودَ ۛ وَٱلَّذِينَ مِنۢ بَعْدِهِمْ ۛ لَا يَعْلَمُهُمْ إِلَّا ٱللَّهُ ۚ جَآءَتْهُمْ رُسُلُهُم بِٱلْبَيِّنَٰتِ فَرَدُّوٓا۟ أَيْدِيَهُمْ فِىٓ أَفْوَٰهِهِمْ وَقَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا كَفَرْنَا بِمَآ أُرْسِلْتُم بِهِۦ وَإِنَّا لَفِى شَكٍّۢ مِّمَّا تَدْعُونَنَآ إِلَيْهِ مُرِيبٍۢ ﴾

“HAVE THE STORIES of those [deniers of the truth] who lived before you never yet come within your ken - [the stories of] the people of Noah, and of [the tribes of] `Ad and Thamud, and of those who came after them? None knows them [now] save God. There came unto them their apostles with all evidence of the truth -but they covered their mouths with their hands and answered: "Behold, we refuse to regard as true the message with which you [claim to] have been entrusted; and, behold, we are in grave doubt, amounting to suspicion, about [the meaning of] your call to us!"”

All of the prophets who came to various communities, had the same experience: everywhere efforts were made to silence them, for every community opposed its prophet. What was the reason for this? The reason for this was the people’s ‘doubt’. This doubt existed because the religion of their forefathers held sway and was widely believed in. By contrast, here was the divine religion being introduced by an apparently ordinary man. The arguments appeared to favour the religion of the Prophet. But historical glory and public popularity seemed to be on the side of their forefathers’ religion. The addressees of the Prophet were themselves in a dilemma: they did not have the power to reject the arguments and at the same time they could not understand how they could consider their leaders and great men to be on the wrong path. This double-edged puzzle pushed them further into a dilemma. Attached as they were to their ancestral religion, they could not accept the truth inspite of being convinced of the strong arguments.