THE MAIN THEME of this surah is that false pride which often makes man think that he is the centre of the universe, and thus impels him to remain smugly satisfied with his own, empirically-acquired knowledge (verse 83), to worship all manner of imaginary forces and false values seemingly helpful to human aggrandizement - like wealth, power, or even the conceit of "progress" - and to deny validity to any truth, however obvious, which runs counter to his sense of self-importance. The arrogant assumption that man is self-sufficient - an illusion already touched upon in verses 6-7 of one of the earliest Qur'anic revelations (surah 96) - brings with it the conviction that he is above all need of divine guidance, implying a rejection of the belief in resurrection and of God's ultimate judgment on "the Day of Reckoning" (verse 27). The opening chord of this theme appears in the statement that "none but those who are bent on denying the truth would call God's messages in question" (verse 4), and is developed in many variations throughout the surah: thus, "in their hearts is nothing but overweening self-conceit, which they will never be able to satisfy" (verse 56); and "perverted are the minds of those who knowingly reject God's messages" (verse 63) - for "God sets a seal on every arrogant, self-exalting heart" (verse 35), condemning it to spiritual blindness in this world and, as a consequence, to suffering in the life to come. As so often in the Qur'an, these ideas are illustrated by references to the stories of earlier prophets, and to what happened in the end to deniers of the truth in bygone times (verses 21-22 and 82 ff.)- "such being the way of God that has always obtained for His creatures" (verse 85). The. key-word by which the surah is known has been taken from verse 3, where God is spoken of as ghafir adh-dhanb ("forgiving sins"): but it has also been designated as Al-Mu'min ("The Believer"), alluding to the "believing man of Pharaoh's family" who tried to convince his erring compatriots of the truth of Moses' mission. All authorities agree that the present and the six successive surahs (all of which are prefixed with the letter-symbols Ha Mim) belong to the later part of the middle Mecca period.