مَا يَأْتِيهِم مِّن ذِكْرٍ مِّن رَّبِّهِم مُّحْدَثٍ إِلَّا ٱسْتَمَعُوهُ وَهُمْ يَلْعَبُونَ
Maa yaateehim min zikrim mir Rabbihim muhdasin illas tama'oohu wa hum yal'aboon
ان کے پاس کوئی نئی نصیحت ان کے پروردگار کی طرف سے نہیں آتی مگر وہ اسے کھیلتے ہوئے سنتے ہیں
No fresh reminder comes to them from their Lord but they listen to it while they play,
They do listen, and the verb says so: istamaʿa is the attentive form of hearing, lending an ear rather than merely catching a sound. What undoes it is the play running alongside, so the failure sits in the accompaniment. Muḥdath, newly arrived, became one of the most fought-over words of the Qur'an during the ninth-century dispute over whether the Qur'an was created, and this verse was among its standing proof-texts.