84فَلَمّا رَأَوا بَأسَنا قالوا آمَنّا بِاللَّهِ وَحدَهُ وَكَفَرنا بِما كُنّا بِهِ مُشرِكينَMuhammad AsadAnd then, when they [clearly] beheld Our punishment,1 they said: "We have come to believe in the One God, and we have renounced all belief in that to which we were wont to ascribe a share in His divinity!"2I.e., the God-willed, catastrophic breakdown of their society and civilization in consequence of their persistent rejection of all spiritual values.This evidently includes their past belief in man's supposedly "unlimited possibilities" and the illusory conviction that one day he would achieve "mastery over nature".