“Did they never ponder over this Word (of God)? Or has he (the Messenger) brought something the like of which did not come to their forefathers of yore?”
(Al-Qur’ān – 23:68)
The Qur’ān poses a question here: Did the unbelievers reject the Prophet’s Message because they failed to comprehend it? Obviously, that was not the case. For, the Qur’ān is far from being a jigsaw puzzle that defies comprehension. Nor has it been revealed in a language alien to the unbelievers. Nor are the contents of the Qur’ān beyond human comprehension. The thrust of the statement then is that the unbelievers fully understood the Message, in fact they understood it even in its complete detail. Their rejection, therefore, is both deliberate and well-considered, and not the result of any deficiency in their understanding.
Another possible reason for their rejection of the Qur’ānic Message could be that it expounded something absolutely novel, something altogether unheard of. Obviously, this was not true either. The Prophet ﷺtaught that God had raised many earlier Prophets who brought their Scriptures, called people to monotheism, warned them that they would be held to account in the Life to Come, and expounded well-known principles of morality.
None of these teachings was being expounded for the first time in human history. The neighbouring lands had witnessed the advent of a host of successive Prophets each of whom had expounded substantially the same teachings. Hence, the Arabs were not unfamiliar with the contents of the Prophet’s teachings.