87 Preface وَإِن كانَ طائِفَةٌ مِنكُم آمَنوا بِالَّذي أُرسِلتُ بِهِ وَطائِفَةٌ لَم يُؤمِنوا فَاصبِروا حَتّىٰ يَحكُمَ اللَّهُ بَينَنا ۚ وَهُوَ خَيرُ الحاكِمينَYusuf Ali“And if there is a party among you who believes in the message with which I have been sent, and a party which does not believe,1 hold yourselves in patience until God doth decide between us: for He is the best to decide.2Madyan is torn by internal conflict. Shu'ayb comes as a peacemaker, not in virtue of his own wisdom, but by an appeal to the truth, righteousness and justice of God. As we see later, the real motives of his opponents were selfishness, arrogance, violence, lawlessness, and injustice. But he appeals to their better nature, and is prepared to argue on the basis that the party which wants to suppress those who believe in God’s Message and in righteousness, has some sincere mental difficulty in accepting Shu'ayb’s mission. “If,” he says to them, “that is the case, do you think it justifies your intolerance, your violence, or your persecution? On the contrary, events will prove by themselves who is right and who is wrong.” To the small band who believe in his mission and follow his teaching, he would preach patience and perseverance. His argument to them would be: 'You have faith; surely your faith is strong enough to sustain you in the hope that God’s truth will triumph in the end; there is no cause for despair or dejection.” How exactly these past experiences fit the times of our Holy Guide Muḥammad! And it is for that analogy and that lesson that the stories of Noah, Hud, Ṣālih, Lut, and Shu'ayb are related to us-all different, and yet all pointing to the great lessons in Muḥammad’s life.See the argument in the last note. God’s decision may come partly in this very life, eidier for the same generation or for succeeding generations, by the logic of external events. But in any case it is bound to come spiritually on a higher plane eventually, when the righteous will be comforted and the sinners will be convinced of sin from their own inner conviction.