In the eyes of God, man’s greatest crime is his adoption of an attitude of arrogance and obstinacy when he is called upon to submit to God. For such people there shall be disgrace in this world and in the Hereafter. Their punishment will be so severe that they will find themselves constantly on the verge of death and destruction. When a man becomes tyrannical and arrogant towards others, he does it with some backing. The opponents of Islam felt their position to be impregnable because they followed the religion of their ‘great men’. In comparison the Prophet and his Companions appeared to them to be lesser mortals. It was this mentality which prompted them to consider legitimate all types of persecution of the Prophet and his Companions. It was due to their linking themselves with their ‘great men’ that they became bold enough to take all sorts of punitive action against the so-called ‘small men’.