Conversely, the divine wisdom in His guiding the believers becomes clear. Because they were fair-minded—seeking nothing but the truth and aiming only for their Lord’s pleasure—Allah guided them by means of the Quran. Through it their knowledge, understanding, faith, and the various facets of their guidance all increased. Allah, Exalted be He, says: “Through it Allah guides those who pursue His good pleasure to the pathways of peace; He brings them out of darkness into light by His permission and directs them to a straight path” (16) [al-Māʾidah 5:16].

This lofty description of the believers is the foundation of their guidance, the growth of their faith, and their ready obedience. With it the door is opened for you to grasp the verses that portray the qualities of the believers and their swift submission to the truth, both in its fundamentals and its branches.

• Among the Prophet’s ﷺ stances toward those who denied him was that he called them with wisdom and good admonition, debated them in the best manner, invited them individually and in small groups, reminded them with the Quran, and recited it both in prayer and outside it.

Whenever they heard it, they would plug their ears; at times they even hurled insults at him and at the One who revealed it. Allah therefore sent down many verses to His Messenger on this matter, exposing their attitude toward hearing the Quran and their intense aversion to it—“as though they were startled donkeys fleeing from a lion.” Their devils and their chiefs in evil pondered and deliberated over what they should say about the Quran, how they might label it so as to turn people away from it, until their leader, al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah—whom Allah called “the solitary one”—settled on the verdict: “This is nothing but inherited magic (24); this is nothing but the speech of a mortal (25)” [al-Muddaththir 74:24-25]. Yet Allah willed that this speech rise above every other speech and that this truth vanquish every falsehood.