(36–41) “When those who disbelieve see you, they do nothing but make you an object of ridicule, saying, ‘Is this the one who speaks ill of your gods?’ Yet it is they who reject the mention of the Most Merciful. * Man was created of haste. I shall show you My signs, so do not ask Me to hasten them. * They say, ‘When will this promise come, if you are truthful?’ * If only those who disbelieve knew the time when they will be unable to ward the Fire off their faces or their backs, and they will receive no help! * Rather, it will come upon them suddenly and leave them dumbfounded. They will be unable to repel it, nor will they be granted respite. * Messengers before you were indeed mocked, but those who ridiculed them were engulfed by the very thing they used to mock.”
This reflects the depth of their disbelief. Whenever the polytheists saw the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), they mocked him and said, “Is this the one who speaks ill of your gods?” That is, according to their claim: “Is this contemptible man the one who insults your gods, denigrates them, and speaks against them? Pay him no heed and attach no importance to him.”
Thus they mocked and belittled him precisely for something that was among his perfections. He was the most perfect and excellent of people, and among his virtues and noble qualities were his sincere devotion of worship to Allah, his condemnation and disparagement of everything worshipped besides Him, and his declaration of its true standing and status. Those truly deserving of contempt and ridicule, however, were these disbelievers, who combined within themselves every blameworthy trait. Even if they had possessed no fault other than their disbelief in the Lord and their rejection of His messengers, that alone would have made them among the vilest and most abject of creation. Moreover, even their mention of the Most Merciful—though that is the best of their states—is bound up with disbelief, for they neither mention Him nor believe in Him except while associating partners with Him. Their mention of Him is therefore disbelief and polytheism; what, then, of their other states? Hence He says, “Yet it is they who reject the mention of the Most Merciful.” The use here of His name “the Most Merciful” highlights the ugliness of their condition: how could they respond with disbelief and polytheism to the Most Merciful—the Bestower of every blessing and the One who wards off every affliction, from whom alone comes every blessing His servants possess and apart from whom none can repel harm?
“Man was created of haste.” That is, he was created hasty: he rushes toward things and wishes for them to occur quickly. The believers wish Allah’s punishment of the disbelievers to come quickly and deem it slow in coming, while the disbelievers turn away (1) and demand that the punishment be hastened, out of denial and obstinacy. They say, “When will this promise come, if you are truthful?” Allah Most High grants respite but does not neglect, and He forbears and appoints for them a fixed term: “When their appointed time arrives, they can neither delay it for a moment nor bring it forward.” Hence He says, “I shall show you My signs”—that is, through My vengeance upon those who disbelieve in Me and disobey Me—“so do not ask Me to hasten them.” Likewise, those who disbelieve say, “When will this promise come, if you are truthful?” They say this out of delusion, for ⦗524⦘ punishment has not yet become inevitable for them, nor has the torment descended upon them.
If only “those who disbelieve” knew their dreadful condition when they will be unable to ward the Fire off their faces or their backs, for it will have surrounded them on every side and engulfed them from every direction. “And they will receive no help”—that is, no one else will help them. They will neither receive help nor be able to help themselves.
“Rather, it will come upon them”—the Fire—“suddenly and leave them dumbfounded” through overwhelming shock, terror, and fear.
“They will be unable to repel it,” for they will be far too humiliated and weak to do so.
“Nor will they be granted respite”—that is, they will not be given additional time so that the punishment might be delayed. Had they truly understood this condition, they would not have asked for the punishment to be hastened and would have feared it intensely. But because this knowledge had departed from them, they said what they said.
After mentioning how they mocked His Messenger by saying, “Is this the one who speaks ill of your gods?” Allah consoled him by explaining that this had always been the way of earlier nations with their messengers. He said, “Messengers before you were indeed mocked, but those who ridiculed them were engulfed”—that is, it descended upon them—“by the very thing they used to mock.” In other words, the punishment descended upon them and all means of deliverance were cut off. Let these people therefore beware lest the fate of those earlier deniers also befall them.