31وَإِذا تُتلىٰ عَلَيهِم آياتُنا قالوا قَد سَمِعنا لَو نَشاءُ لَقُلنا مِثلَ هٰذا ۙ إِن هٰذا إِلّا أَساطيرُ الأَوَّلينَMuhammad AsadAnd whenever Our messages were conveyed to them, they would say, "We have heard [all this] before; if we wanted, we could certainly compose sayings like these [ourselves]: they are nothing but fables of ancient times!"1Cf. 6:25. As regards the expression la-qulna - here rendered as "we could certainly [ourselves] compose" - it is to be remembered that the verb gala does not always signify only "he said", but also "he asserted" or "expressed an opinion", as well as-in connection with a literary production - "he composed": thus, qala shi'r means "he composed a poem". In the above context, this expression alludes to the oft-repeated (but never fulfilled) boast of the pagan Quraysh that they could produce a poetic message comparable in merit to that of the Qur'an; in its wider sense, it is an allusion to the attitude of many unbelievers towards revealed scriptures in general.