And We gave Moses the Book, after that We had destroyed the former generations, to be examples and a guidance and a mercy, that haply so they might remember. 43 And you, [O Muhammad], were not on the western side [of the mount] when We revealed to Moses the command, and you were not among the witnesses [to that]. 44 We raised generations who lived long. You did not live among the people of Midian, nor did you recite to them Our verses; but We were sending Messengers. 45 And nor were you beside the Mount when We proclaimed – however it is a mercy from your Lord* so that you may warn a nation towards whom no Herald of Warning came before you, in the hope of their heeding advice. (*That He has bestowed knowledge of the hidden to you) 46 and not say, when evil befalls them on account of that which their hands forwarded: 'Our Lord, why did You not send a Messenger to us so that we might follow Your verses and so that we might be among the believers' 47 Yet when the truth came to them 'from Ourselves, they said, 'Why has he not been given the like' of that Moses was given?' But they, did they not disbelieve also in what Moses was given aforetime? They said, 'A pair of sorceries mutually supporting each other.' They said, 'We disbelieve both.' 48 Say: "Then bring a Book from God which gives better guidance than these so that I may follow it, if you speak the truth." 49 Then if they do not answer thee, know that they are only following their caprices; and who is further astray than he who follows his caprice without guidance from God? Surely God guides not the people of the evildoers. 50