He—glorified be He—has explained that the only reason He withholds the extraordinary signs is the very denial of the former peoples, a denial for which they became liable to annihilation. Thus, were this generation to reject such signs, they too would merit the same obliterating punishment that befell those before them. This point is cited in virtually every work of Qur’anic exegesis and hadith, and in many other Islamic writings, and it is reliably transmitted through sound chains from the Companions and those who followed them with excellence.

The exegetes relate what the scholars of tafsīr, hadith, and musnad collections have reported through the chain of al-Aʿmash—from Jaʿfar ibn Iyās—from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr—from Ibn ʿAbbās:

“The people of Mecca asked the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, to turn Ṣafā into gold and to move the surrounding mountains away so that they could farm the land. He was told, ‘If you wish, give them respite; or, if you wish, grant them what they have requested. Yet if they then disbelieve, they will be destroyed just as I destroyed those before them.’ He replied, ‘No; rather, I will give them respite.’

Thereupon Allah revealed the verse: ‘Nothing has prevented Us from sending the signs except that earlier peoples denied them.’ ⦗al-Isrāʾ, 17:59⦘