The Quran

فَقالَ المَلَأُ الَّذينَ كَفَروا مِن قَومِهِ ما هٰذا إِلّا بَشَرٌ مِثلُكُم يُريدُ أَن يَتَفَضَّلَ عَلَيكُم وَلَو شاءَ اللَّهُ لَأَنزَلَ مَلائِكَةً ما سَمِعنا بِهٰذا في آبائِنَا الأَوَّلينَ

Muhammad Asad

But the great ones among his people, who refused to acknowledge the truth, replied: "This [man] is nothing but a mortal like yourselves who wants to make himself superior to you! For, if God had willed [to convey a message unto us], He would surely have sent down angels; [moreover,] we have never heard [anything like] this from our forebears of old!¹

Lit., "in connection with (fi) our early forebears" - a Qur'anic allusion to the fact that people often reject a new ethical proposition on no better grounds than that it conflicts with their "inherited" habits of thought and ways of life. [ndirectly, this allusion implies a condemnation of all blind taqlid, i.e., an unthinking acceptance of religious doctrines or assertions which are not unequivocally supported by divine revelation, the explicit teachings of a prophet, or the evidence of unprejudiced reason.