Al-Kalbi and Muqatil said: “Stakes” is the plural of stake. Pharaoh had stakes upon which he tortured people. Whenever he became angry with someone, he would stretch him out on his back between four stakes, tie each of his hands and feet to a stake, and leave him suspended thus in the air between heaven and earth until he died.

Mujahid and Muqatil ibn Hayyan said: He would stretch a man out on his back upon the ground, fastening his hands, feet, and head to the ground with stakes.

Al-Suddi said: He would stretch a man out and bind him with stakes, then release scorpions and snakes upon him (1).

Qatadah and ‘Ata’ said: He had stakes, ropes, and places of entertainment where games were played before him (2).

“Thamud, the people of Lot, and the companions of the thicket—those are the factions. (13) Every one of them denied the messengers, so My punishment became due. (14) These await only a single blast, for which there is no respite. (15)”

“Thamud, the people of Lot, and the companions of the thicket—those are the factions”: that is, those who banded together against the prophets. Thus He informs us that the polytheists of Quraysh were one faction among these factions.

“Every one of them” means: there was none among them “but that he denied the messengers, so My punishment became due”—that is, My punishment became binding upon them and descended upon them. “These await” means, they are awaiting—namely, the disbelievers of Mecca—“only a single blast,” namely the blast of the Trumpet, “for which there is no respite.”

Hamzah and al-Kisa’i recited it as fuwāq, with the letter fa’ pronounced with a ḍammah, while the others recited it with a fatḥah. Both are dialectal forms: the fatḥah is the dialect of Quraysh, and the ḍammah is the dialect of Tamim.

Ibn ‘Abbas and Qatadah said: It means no return; that is, that sound will not be sent back so as to have a return.

Mujahid said: No delay. Al-Dahhak said: No turning back—that is, no diversion or repelling.

The meaning is that when that blast—the appointed time of their punishment—comes, it will neither be turned back nor diverted.

Some distinguished between the form with a fatḥah and that with a ḍammah. Al-Farra’ and Abu ‘Ubaydah said: The form with a fatḥah means rest and recovery, like jawāb (response) from ijābah (responding); they understood it as referring to a sick person’s recovery from his illness. The form with a ḍammah denotes the interval between two milkings: a she-camel is milked, then left for a while until the milk gathers again. The time between the two milkings is called fuwāq. Thus, the punishment will not grant them even that amount of delay (3).

It was also said that both are metaphors derived from return, since milk returns to the udder between two milkings, and a sick person’s recovery: