55إِنَّ شَرَّ الدَّوابِّ عِندَ اللَّهِ الَّذينَ كَفَروا فَهُم لا يُؤمِنونَMuhammad AsadVerily, the vilest creatures in the sight of God are those who are bent on denying the truth and therefore do not believe.1Cf. verse 22 of this surah, where the same epithet is applied to human beings "who do not use their reason". In the present instance, it should be noted, the particle fa at the beginning of the phrase fa-hum la yu'minun has the meaning of "and therefore" ("and therefore they do not believe"): thus showing that lack of belief in spiritual verities is a consequence of one's being "bent on denying the truth". Expressed in positive terms, this amounts to the statement that belief in any ethical proposition depends on one's readiness to consider it on its merits and to admit the truth of whatever one's mind judges to be in conformity with other - empirically or intuitively established - truths. As regards the expression alladhina kafaru, the use of the past tense is meant here, as so often in the Qur'an, to stress the element of intention, and is, therefore, consistently rendered by me - wherever the context warrants it - as "those who are bent on denying the truth" (see also surah 2, note 6).