The Quran

إِنَّ الَّذينَ كَفَروا وَيَصُدّونَ عَن سَبيلِ اللَّهِ وَالمَسجِدِ الحَرامِ الَّذي جَعَلناهُ لِلنّاسِ سَواءً العاكِفُ فيهِ وَالبادِ ۚ وَمَن يُرِد فيهِ بِإِلحادٍ بِظُلمٍ نُذِقهُ مِن عَذابٍ أَليمٍ

Muhammad Asad

BEHOLD, as for those who are bent on denying the truth and bar [others] from the path of God¹ and from the Inviolable House of Worship which We have set up for all people alike - [both] those who dwell there and those who come from abroad - and all who seek to profane it² by [deliberate] evildoing: [all] such shall We cause to taste grievous suffering [in the life to come.]³

This connects with the allusion, in the preceding verse, to "the way that leads to the One unto whom all praise is due".
Lit., "who aim therein at a deviation from the right course (ilhad)" - a term which circumscribes every perversion of religious tenets.
According to Ibn 'Abbas, as quoted by Ibn Hisham, this verse was revealed towards the end of the year 6 H., when the pagan Quraysh refused the Prophet and his followers, who had come on pilgrimage from Medina, the right of entry into Mecca, and thus into the sanctuary of the Ka'bah (the "Inviolable House of Worship"). But whether or not this claim is correct - and we have no definite historical evidence in either sense - the purport of the above verse is not restricted to any historical situation but relates to every attempt at preventing believers, be it physically or through intellectual seduction, from going on pilgrimage to this symbolic centre of their faith, or at destroying its sanctity in their eyes.