What! has He taken daughters out of what He himself creates, and granted to you sons for choice? 16 When news is brought to one of them of (the birth of) what he sets up as a likeness to (Allah) Most Gracious, his face darkens, and he is filled with inward grief! 17 What! that which is made in ornaments and which in contention is unable to make plain speech! 18 And they make the angels who are the bondmen of the Compassionate females. Have they witnessed their creation? Their testimony will be written down, and they will be questioned. 19 Yet they say: "Had [not] the Most Gracious so willed, we would never have worshipped them!" [But] they cannot have any knowledge of [His having willed] such a thing: they do nothing but guess. 20 Had We, before sending the Quran, given them a book to which they now refer as an authority? 21 Nay, but they say, 'We found our fathers upon a community, and we are guided upon their traces.' 22 Whenever We sent a messenger before you to warn a township, the affluent among them said, in the same way, "We saw our fathers following this tradition; we are only following in their footsteps." 23 ۞ "Even if I bring you a better guidance," he rejoined, "than the one you found your fathers on?" Still they said: "We do not believe in what you have brought." 24 So We took vengeance upon them; and behold how was the end of them that cried lies. 25