90 Preface وَقالَ المَلَأُ الَّذينَ كَفَروا مِن قَومِهِ لَئِنِ اتَّبَعتُم شُعَيبًا إِنَّكُم إِذًا لَخاسِرونَYusuf AliThe leaders, the unbelievers among his people, said: “If ye follow Shu'aib, be sure then ye are ruined!”1The answer of the Unbelievers is characteristic. As all their bribes and subtleties have failed, they resort to threats, which are worse than the argument of the stick. “All right,” they say, “there is nothing but ruin before you!” That means that the Believers will be persecuted, held up to obloquy, ostracised, and prevented from access to all means of honorable livelihood; their families and dependants will be insulted, reviled, and tortured, if they could but be got into the enemy’s power; their homes destroyed, and their names held up to ridicule and contempt even when they are gone. But, as verse 92 says, their wicked designs recoiled on themselves: it was the wicked who were ruined and blotted out.