قَالُوا إِنَّا تَطَيَّرْنَا بِكُمْ ۖ لَئِنْ لَمْ تَنْتَهُوا لَنَرْجُمَنَّكُمْ وَلَيَمَسَّنَّكُمْ مِنَّا عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ
They said, 'We regard you as an evil omen! If you do not stop, we will certainly stone you, and painful punishment from us will reach you'
Opposition to the messengers now becomes openly threatening. Instead of responding to the divine invitation, the townspeople accuse the messengers of bringing bad fortune and threaten violence if they continue preaching.
The word tatayyarna comes from tatayyur: treating something as a bad omen. The expression originally related to ancient forms of divination using the movements of birds, such as crows. People sometimes imagined that the flight or behaviour of birds foretold coming good or evil. The language later extended to regarding people, events or even one's own prospects as unlucky. Attributing misfortune to such signs is a superstitious belief without reliable evidence.
The townspeople treated the messengers' presence as an evil omen. The Quran does not describe any particular incident, such as a famine or disease, that supposedly led to this belief. What is clear is their accusation of bad fortune without a sound reason.
The threat la-narjumannakum means “we will certainly stone you”; the next clause threatens painful punishment as well. The strong emphasis shows that rejection has moved beyond words and into threats against the messengers' lives and safety.
This behaviour reveals how superstition can become a pretext for hostility and injustice. People unwilling to examine the truth make its messengers responsible for their troubles and seek to silence them through threats rather than engage with what they say.