In the name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficent
If they accuse you of falsehood, before their time the people of Noah, (the tribes of) Aad and Thamud similarly accused (their prophets) of falsehood, as did the people of Abraham and the people of Lot, and the dwellers of Madyan; and so too was Moses accused of falsehood. (In every case) I gave rein, for a while, to the unbelievers, but then I took them to task. How awesome was the way I rejected them.
How many a township have We destroyed because it had been immersed in evildoing. Now they lie in desolate ruin. How many a well lies abandoned, and how many a proud palace lies empty.
Have they never journeyed through the lands, letting their hearts gain wisdom, and their ears hear? It is not eyes that go blind; but blind indeed become the hearts that are in people’s breasts.
They challenge you to hasten the coming upon them of God’s punishment; but God never fails to fulfill His promise. Well, in your Lord’s sight a day is like a thousand years of your reckoning.(The Pilgrimage, Al-Haj, 22: 42-47)
The previous passage of the surah finished with a permission granted to fight against unbelievers in order to protect and preserve faith and worship, coupled with God’s promise to grant victory to those who fulfill their responsibilities toward the faith and implement the divine law in life. Now that the task entrusted to the community of believers has been clearly spelt out, the surah reassures the Prophet that God’s power will intervene to provide him with the help he needs and to ensure the failure of his enemies. The same power intervened in the past to support earlier prophets and messengers, and to punish those who denied and opposed them. The unbelievers are directed to reflect over the doom suffered by earlier community; although such reflection needs open hearts and minds. It is not eyes that may be blind, but real blindness is that of the heart.
The Prophet is also reassured on another count, namely that God protects His messengers from Satan’s wicked scheming, just like He protects them from the plots of their opponents. He renders futile all Satan’s attempts, keeps His revelations pure and clear, so that people with sound minds can reflect over them. Those that are sick at heart and those who deny the true faith will continue to be in doubt, and their doubts will lead them to the worst destiny anyone can ever have. Thus, the entire new passage is a study of how God’s power plays a vital role in the fortunes of the advocates of God’s message who fulfill the task assigned to them.
"If they accuse you of falsehood, before their time, the people of Noah, (the tribes of) Aad and Thamud similarly accused (their prophets) of falsehood, as did the people of Abraham and the people of Lot, and the dwellers of Madyan; and so too was Moses accused of falsehood. (In every case) I gave rein, for a while, to the unbelievers, but then I took them to task. How awesome was the way I rejected them." It is the same pattern seen over and over again, in all past messages up to the final one. Messengers are given signs and revelations, and there will always be those who deny the truth. Thus, when the idolaters in Makkah denied the message of Prophet Muhammad, it was by no means a new trend and the Prophet was not experiencing an unknown pattern of hostility. However, the outcome is well known, and what happened with earlier communities was bound to happen again: "The people of Noah, (the tribes of) Aad and Thamud similarly accused (their prophets) of falsehood, as did the people of Abraham and the people of Lot, and the dwellers of Madyan."
Moses, however, is mentioned on his own as though the reference to him constitutes a special paragraph: "And so too was Moses accused of falsehood." Unlike other messengers, Moses was not accused of falsehood by his own people. It was Pharaoh and his chiefs that opposed Moses, leveling all sorts of accusations on him. Moreover, Moses was given very clear and numerous signs, and he went through great events. Nevertheless, in all these cases, God gave the unbelievers respite for a while, in the same way as He was giving the Quraysh, the Prophet’s own people who opposed him most fiercely. He then punished all those past communities very severely.
This is followed by a rhetoric question that stresses the frightening effect of God’s punishment: "How awesome was the way I rejected them." The Arabic word used here for ‘rejection’ carries added connotations of a violent change. The question needs no answer, as it is well known: it was a rejection demonstrated through great floods, destruction, earthquakes, fearful hurricanes, etc.
Having given this very quick reference to the fate suffered by those particular communities, the surah adds a general reference to past communities which suffered for their attitude to the divine message: "How many a township have We destroyed because it had been immersed in evildoing. Now they lie in desolate ruin. How many a well lies abandoned, and how many a proud palace lies empty." Numerous indeed were those towns and cities which suffered their inevitable doom as a result of their evildoing. Their fate is shown here most effectively: "Now they lie in desolate ruin." Roofs are caved in as walls are made to collapse, leaving a depressing sight of total, lifeless ruin. The scene invites contemplation, because ruins have a very strong effect on people, causing them to reflect and contemplate.
Next to these desolate remains of destroyed cities lie abandoned wells, reminding visitors of past days when people gathered around them for fresh water. And next to these are deserted palaces that stood proudly in the past, but now they are empty, evoking only images and memories of a glorious past.
As the surah portrays these scenes, it adds a rhetoric question about their effects on unbelievers: "Have they never journeyed through the lands, letting their hearts gain wisdom, and their ears hear? It is not eyes that go blind; but blind indeed become the hearts that are in people’s breasts." There is a stress here on the location of hearts in people’s bodies, which serves to add emphasis to the blindness of those hearts in particular. Had those hearts been able to reflect on the scenes portrayed, they would have remembered and people’s eyes would have been tearful. They would have moved toward faith, at least as the result of fearing an end like those that befell other communities.
But those unbelievers of the Quraysh did not wish to reflect on those scenes showing God’s punishment. Instead they tried to hasten their own punishment which God has delayed until a particular point in time known to Him alone: "They challenge you to hasten the coming upon them of God’s punishment; but God never fails to fulfill His promise. Well, in your Lord’s sight a day is like a thousand years of your reckoning."
It is the same story with the unbelievers in all generations. They see with their eyes the ruins of cities destroyed for their wrongdoing, and they hear their histories, but they, nevertheless, follow in their footsteps overlooking their fate. If they were to be reminded of what happened to earlier communities, they feel it unlikely that they would suffer the same fate. But if God grants them respite to test them further, they grow arrogant and heedless. They even ridicule anyone reminding them that they could suffer as people suffered before them. What is more is that they add to such ridicule a request for the punishment to be hastened to them. Here they are told that ‘God never fails to fulfill His promise.’ Such a promise or warning will inevitably come to pass at the time God, in His infinite wisdom, determines. If people hasten its fulfillment, it will not be made to come before its appointed time, because its delay is for a purpose known to God, and that purpose will not be suffered to fail in order to grant human beings their ignorant wishes. Moreover, time is calculated differently by God: "In your Lord’s sight a day is like a thousand years of your reckoning."
