And nothing prevented people that is the disbelievers of Mecca from believing an yu’minū is after al-nāsa ‘people’ constitutes the second direct object clause when the guidance the Qur’ān came to them and from asking forgiveness of their Lord without that there should come upon them the precedent of the ancients sunnatu’l-awwalīn constitutes the subject of the verb that is to say Our precedent of dealing with them which is the destruction decreed for them or that the chastisement should come upon them before their very eyes in front of them and for them to see — which was their being killed on the day of Badr a variant reading for qibalan has qubulan which in the accusative is the plural of qabīlin meaning ‘of various kinds’.