“Say, ‘The truth has come, and falsehood can neither originate nor restore anything.’ (49) Say, ‘If I go astray, I do so only to my own detriment; but if I am rightly guided, it is by what my Lord reveals to me. Indeed, He is All-Hearing, Ever Near.’ (50) If only you could see when they are terrified: then there will be no escape, and they will be seized from a nearby place. (51) And they will say, ‘We believe in it.’ But how could they attain it from a far-off place? (52)”

“Say, ‘The truth has come,’” meaning the Quran and Islam. “And falsehood can neither originate nor restore anything”: that is, falsehood has departed and vanished, leaving no remnant with which to begin or repeat anything. As Allah the Exalted says: “Rather, We hurl the truth against falsehood, and it crushes it” (al-Anbiya 48). Qatadah said: “Falsehood” is Iblis. This was also the view of Muqatil and al-Kalbi. It was also said that “falsehood” refers to the idols.

“Say, ‘If I go astray, I do so only to my own detriment.’” This is because the disbelievers of Mecca used to say to him: “You have gone astray when you abandoned the religion of your forefathers.” So Allah the Exalted said: “Say, ‘If I go astray, I do so only to my own detriment,’” meaning: the sin of my misguidance rests upon myself. “But if I am rightly guided, it is by what my Lord reveals to me,” of the Quran and wisdom. “Indeed, He is All-Hearing, Ever Near.”

“If only you could see when they are terrified.” Qatadah said: This will be at the Resurrection, when they are brought forth from their graves. “Then there will be no escape,” meaning: they will not escape Me, as He says: “And there was no time for escape” (Sad 3). It was also said: when they are terrified, there will be neither escape nor deliverance. “And they will be seized from a nearby place.” Al-Kalbi said: from beneath their feet. It was also said: they will be seized from the belly of the earth to its surface; wherever they may be, they are near to Allah. (1) They cannot escape Him. It was also said that “from a nearby place” means the punishment of this world. Al-Dahhak said: on the Day of Badr. Ibn Abza said: the swallowing up of the earth at al-Bayda. (2) The verse contains an ellipsis, its implied meaning being: If only you could see when they are terrified, you would see something from which you would take warning.

“And they will say, ‘We believe in it,’” when they behold the punishment. It was said: when all hope is lost. It was also said: at the Resurrection. “But how”: that is, from where—“could they attain it?” Abu Amr, Hamzah, al-Kisa'i, and Abu Bakr recited tanā'ush with a lengthened vowel and hamzah. The others recited it with an unmodified waw, without lengthening or hamzah. Its meaning is attainment: how could they attain that which has become distant from them—namely, faith and repentance—when it had been near to them in this world, yet they squandered it? It was also said that the recitation with hamzah has this same meaning.