(46) “And among His signs is that He sends the winds as bearers of glad tidings, lets you taste of His mercy, allows the ships to sail by His command, and enables you to seek of His bounty, so that you may give thanks.”

That is, among the proofs demonstrating His mercy, His resurrection of the dead, and that He is the God worthy of worship and the Sovereign worthy of praise is that “He sends the winds” ahead of the rain “as bearers of glad tidings.” They stir up the clouds and then gather them together, thereby bringing joy to people’s hearts before the rain descends.

“He lets you taste of His mercy”: He sends down upon you, from His mercy, rain by which lands and people are brought to life. You thereby taste enough of His mercy to recognize that it is His mercy that delivers His servants and brings them their sustenance. You then yearn to perform more righteous deeds, which open the treasuries of mercy.

⦗644⦘

“And allows the ships to sail” upon the sea “by His command”—His decree—“and enables you to seek of His bounty” by pursuing your livelihoods and interests.

“So that you may give thanks” to the One who has made the means subservient to you and facilitated your affairs. This is the purpose of blessings: that they should be met with gratitude to Allah Most High, so that Allah may grant you more of them and preserve them for you.

As for responding to blessings with disbelief and sinful deeds, that is the state of one who exchanges Allah’s blessing for disbelief and turns His favor into an affliction. He thus exposes that blessing to disappearance and to being transferred from him to someone else.