What is meant by 'What has been sent down' is either in the accusative case, meaning: What has your Lord sent down? Or it is in the nominative case, meaning: What has your Lord sent down? If you take it in the accusative, then the meaning of 'the legends of the ancients' is what they claim has been sent down, the legends of the ancients. If you take it in the nominative, the meaning is: What has been sent down is the legends of the ancients, like the saying: 'What do they spend? Say: The surplus.' This is for those who raised it. If you say: This is contradictory speech, because it cannot be that what has been sent down is from their Lord and also legends? I say: It is in mockery, like the saying: 'Indeed, your messenger...' This is the speech of some of them to each other, or the words of the Muslims to them. It is said: This is the saying of those who divided: those who divided the entrances of Mecca, turning people away from the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him. When the delegations of the pilgrims asked them about what was sent down to the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, they said: 'The tales of the ancients and their falsehoods,' to mislead the people and to turn them away from the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him. Thus, they bore the full burdens of their misguidance and some burdens of those who were led astray by their misguidance, which is the burden of misleading, because the misleader and the misled are partners: one misleads him, and the other cooperates with him in his misguidance, so they both bear the burden. The meaning of 'for' is for justification without being an objective, like saying: 'I left the town for fear of evil without knowledge.' This is a state of the object, meaning they mislead those who do not know that they are misled. They are described with misguidance and the potential burden of those they misled, even if they do not know, because they were supposed to seek and use their minds to distinguish between the truthful and the false.