“Or do you feel secure from Him who is in heaven, that He will send against you a stone-bearing gale? Then you will know the reality of My warning. Those before them also denied, so how severe was My condemnation! Have they not looked at the birds above them, spreading their wings and folding them in? None holds them up except the Most Merciful. Indeed, He sees all things. Or who is this force of yours that can aid you apart from the Most Merciful? The disbelievers are only in delusion. Or who is it that can provide for you if He withholds His provision? Yet they persist in insolence and aversion. Is one who walks headlong upon his face better guided, or one who walks upright upon a straight path?”

“Or do you feel secure from Him who is in heaven, that He will send against you a stone-bearing gale?” That is, a wind carrying stones, as He did to the people of Lot. “Then you will know,” in the Hereafter and at the time of death, “the reality of My warning”: that is, of My warning when you behold the punishment.

“Those before them also denied”: that is, the disbelievers among the former nations. “So how severe was My condemnation”: that is, My condemnation of them through punishment.

“Have they not looked at the birds above them, spreading their wings?” That is, spreading their wings in the air, “and folding them in” after having spread them. “None holds them from falling, whether they fold [or spread] (1) their wings, except the Most Merciful. Indeed, He sees all things.”

“Or who is this force of yours?” This is a rhetorical question of rebuke. Ibn Abbas said: “That is, what protection do you have?” “That can aid you apart from the Most Merciful”: that is, protect you from His punishment and ward off from you what He wills for you. “The disbelievers are only in delusion”: that is, in a deception of Satan, who deceives them into thinking that punishment will not descend upon them.

“Or who is it that can provide for you if He withholds His provision?” That is, who can provide you with rain if Allah withholds it [from you] (2)? “Yet they persist in insolence”: that is, in continuing in misguidance, “and aversion”: that is, turning away from the truth. Mujahid said: “In ingratitude.”

Then He sets forth a parable, saying: “Is one who walks headlong upon his face”—plunging headlong into misguidance and ignorance, blind in heart and sight, unable to see either to his right or to his left, and this is the disbeliever—“better guided, or one who walks upright upon a straight path?” Qatadah said: He plunged into ⦗170/b⦘ sins in this world, so Allah will raise him upon his face