بَلْ قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا وَجَدْنَآ ءَابَآءَنَا عَلَىٰٓ أُمَّةٍ وَإِنَّا عَلَىٰٓ ءَاثَـٰرِهِم مُّهْتَدُونَ
Bal qaalooo innaa wajadnaaa aabaaa'anaa 'alaaa ummatinw wa innaa 'alaaa aasaarihim muhtadoon
Hayır; "Doğrusu Biz babalarımızı bir din üzerinde bulduk, biz de onların izlerinden gitmekteyiz" derler.
No — they say, "We found our fathers on a path, and we are guided by their footsteps."
Asked whether they hold a book, they answer with an inheritance instead: what they have is a path their fathers walked. The next verse puts nearly the same sentence into the mouths of the affluent in every town warned before them, changing one consonant so that muhtadūn, guided, becomes muqtadūn, following. The claim to be guided comes back as a description of imitation, and the passage treats that argument as old and widely made.