18وَلَقَد كَذَّبَ الَّذينَ مِن قَبلِهِم فَكَيفَ كانَ نَكيرِMuhammad AsadAnd, indeed, [many of] those who lived aforetime1 did give the lie [to My warnings]: and how awesome was My rejection [of them]!Lit., "before them" (min qablihim). This personal pronoun relates - as does the whole of the passage beginning with verse 13 - to people of all times, who are herewith reminded of what happened to deniers of the truth in earlier times; hence my rendering of min qablihim as "aforetime".