(97–98) “We have only made it easy in your own tongue so that you may give glad tidings thereby to the God-fearing and warn thereby an obstinately contentious people. How many generations before them have We destroyed! Do you perceive even one of them or hear from them the faintest sound?”

Allah, Exalted is He, informs us of His grace: He has made this noble Quran easy in the language of the Messenger Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—making both its wording and meanings easy so that its intended purpose may be fulfilled and people may benefit from it.

“So that you may give glad tidings thereby to the God-fearing”: by encouraging them to seek the promised reward in this world and the Hereafter, and by mentioning the causes that warrant those glad tidings.

“And warn thereby an obstinately contentious people,” meaning people deeply entrenched in their falsehood and firm in their disbelief. Thus, you warn them, the proof is established against them, and the clear path is made manifest to them, so that whoever perishes does so upon clear proof and whoever lives does so upon clear proof.

He then threatened them by citing His destruction of the deniers before them, saying: “How many generations before them have We destroyed!”—including the people of Noah, ‘Ād, Thamūd, Pharaoh, and other obstinate deniers. When they persisted in their transgression, Allah destroyed them, and not one of them remained.

“Do you perceive even one of them or hear from them the faintest sound?” The word rendered “faintest sound” means a low sound. In other words, neither one of them nor any trace of them remained. Only the reports of them remain as a lesson for those who take heed, and the tales told of them as an admonition for those who accept admonition.

The commentary on Surah Maryam is complete. To Allah belong all praise and thanks.

Commentary on Surah Tā Hā

It is a Meccan surah.