25.4 – Those who disbelieve say, “This is nothing but a lie! He has forged it . . .”
This passage seems to indicate a verbal encounter between a messenger and his audience (vv. 4–10). The speeches of the listeners show that they doubt the message and, especially, its source. They say the messenger puts his message together with help from others who dictate to him what to recite (vv. 4–5). The listeners instead demand an angel or a treasure from above (vv. 7–8).
Their expression, “Old tales!” (v. 5), repeats eight additional times in the Quran and seems to accuse the messenger of telling stories with which the audience is already familiar. See “Apocryphal Details in Quranic Stories”. On verses that accuse the messenger of inventing, see the discussion at 69.44.