(45–46) “Say, ‘I warn you only by revelation. But the deaf do not hear the call when they are warned. * Yet if even a breath of your Lord’s punishment were to touch them, they would surely say, “Woe to us! We were indeed wrongdoers.”’”

That is: “Say,” O Muhammad, to all people: “I warn you only by revelation.” In other words, I am merely a messenger. I bring you nothing of my own accord; I do not possess the treasuries of Allah; I do not know the unseen; nor do I claim to be an angel. I warn you only with what Allah has revealed to me. If you respond, you have responded to Allah, and He will reward you for it. But if you turn away and oppose the message, I have no control over the matter. The matter belongs to Allah, and all decree is His.

“But the deaf do not hear the call.” A deaf person cannot hear any sound because his hearing has become impaired and ceased to function. For sound to be heard, there must be a faculty capable of receiving it. Likewise, revelation is a means of bringing hearts and souls to life and of granting understanding of Allah’s message. But when a heart is incapable of hearing guidance, then, with respect to guidance and faith, it is like a deaf person with respect to sounds. These polytheists are deaf to guidance, so it is hardly surprising that they are not guided—especially in their present state, before the punishment has come upon them or its pain has touched them.

Yet if “even a breath of your Lord’s punishment were to touch them”—even the smallest portion, though no part of His punishment is slight—“they would surely say, ‘Woe to us! We were indeed wrongdoers.’” That is, their only words would be cries of woe and ruin, expressions of remorse, and an admission of their wrongdoing and disbelief and that they deserved the punishment.