In that self-same place, Zachariah prayed unto his Sustainer, saying: "O my Sustainer! Bestow upon me [too], out of Thy grace, the gift of goodly offspring; for Thou, indeed, hearest all prayer."

And thus were they vanquished there and then, and became utterly humiliated.

There and then will every human being clearly apprehend what he has done in the past; and all will be brought back unto God,* their true Lord Supreme, and all their false imagery will have forsaken them.

For thus it is: all protective power belongs to God alone, the True One. He is the best to grant recompense, and the best to determine what is to be.*

and when they are flung, linked [all] together, into a tight space within, they will pray for extinction there and then!*

[for] there and then were the believers tried, and shaken with a shock severe.

[But] there it is: any and all human beings, however [strongly] leagued together,* are bound to suffer defeat [whenever they refuse to accept the truth].

And, indeed, [O Muhammad,] We sent forth apostles before thy time; some of them We have mentioned to thee,* and some of them We have not mentioned to thee. And it was not given to any apostle to bring forth a miracle other than by God's leave.* Yet when God's will becomes manifest,* judgment will [already] have been passed in all justice, and lost will be, then and there, all who tried to reduce to nothing [whatever they could not understand].*

But their attaining to faith after they had beheld Our punishment could not possibly benefit them* such being the way of God that has always obtained for His creatures -: and so, then and there, lost were they who had denied the truth.*