وَإِن يُكَذِّبُوكَ فَقَدْ كَذَّبَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ جَآءَتْهُمْ رُسُلُهُم بِٱلْبَيِّنَٰتِ وَبِٱلزُّبُرِ وَبِٱلْكِتَٰبِ ٱلْمُنِيرِ · ثُمَّ أَخَذْتُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ فَكَيْفَ كَانَ نَكِيرِ
"If they call you a liar, those before them called liars too: their messengers had come to them with clear proofs, with the scriptures and with the illuminating Book. Then I seized those who denied. How, then, was the recompense of denying Me!"
This sentence is almost identical with the fourth verse of the sūra. The two verses can be set side by side:
| Verse | Expression | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Wa in yukadhdhibūka fa-qad kudhdhibat rusulun min qablik | Passive — the messengers were called liars |
| 25 | Wa in yukadhdhibūka fa-qad kadhdhaba'lladhīna min qablihim | Active — those before them called them liars |
The same sentence twenty-one verses apart, the one passive and the other active. I record this as my own reading: the first consoles the Prophet, the second sets the one addressed into a sequence. When the point of view changes, the voice of the verb changes with it.
ٱلزُّبُر — the plural of zabūr: written pages. The root ز-ب-ر was treated in al-Qamar at 54/52 (to write, to carve in stone). I do not repeat it here.
The ordering of the three words is worth recording: bayyināt (proofs), zubur (pages), kitābu'l-munīr (the illuminating Book). That is: what came is mentioned both as spoken proof and as written document — and this overlaps with the two kinds of evidence asked for in al-Aḥqāf at 46/4 (observation and transmitted report).
نَكِير — root ن-ك-ر: not to recognise, to reject, not to receive well. The word here means not "my denial" but "the requital of my rejection", and the lexicographers explain it as the severity of the punishment.