53وَقَد كَفَروا بِهِ مِن قَبلُ ۖ وَيَقذِفونَ بِالغَيبِ مِن مَكانٍ بَعيدٍMuhammad Asadseeing that aforetime they had been bent on denying the truth, and had been wont to cast scorn, from far away, on something that was beyond the reach of human perception?1The obvious implication is that man's fate in the hereafter will be a consequence of, and invariably conditioned by, his spiritual attitude and the manner of his life during the first, earthly stage of his existence. In this instance, the expression "from far away" is apparently used in a sense similar to sayings like "far off the mark" or "without rhyme or reason", and is meant to qualify as groundless and futile all negative speculations about what the Qur'an describes as al-ghayb ("that which is beyond the reach of human [or "a created being's"] perception"): in this case, life after death.