AND, INDEED, [long before Muhammad] We vouchsafed revelation unto Moses, and appointed his brother Aaron to help him to bear his burden; 35 Then We said, "Go together to the people who have denied Our signs." We utterly destroyed them! 36 The same was the case with the people of Noah when they charged the Messenger with imposture: We drowned them and made them a sign of warning for entire mankind, and We have prepared a painful chastisement for the unjust. 37 Likewise were destroyed the `Ad and the Thamud and the people of the Rass, and many a generation in between. 38 And We illustrated examples to each one of them; and ruining them, annihilated them all. 39 And indeed they have visited the township upon which had rained a harmful rain; so were they not seeing it? In fact, they never expected to be raised again. 40 And when they see you, [O Muhammad], they take you not except in ridicule, [saying], "Is this the one whom Allah has sent as a messenger? 41 “Possibly he would have misled us away from our Gods had we not been firm upon them”; soon they will know, when they see the punishment, who was astray from the path. 42 Have you seen the one who takes as his god his own desire? Then would you be responsible for him? 43 Or do you think that most of them hear or understand something? They are not but like the cattle – in fact more astray from the path than them! 44