(51–53) “Yet if We were to send a wind and they saw it turn yellow, they would thereafter persist in disbelief. * Indeed, you cannot make the dead hear, nor can you make the deaf hear the call when they turn their backs and retreat. * Nor can you guide the blind out of their error. You can make none hear except those who believe in Our signs and submit themselves.”

The Most High tells us about the condition of people: despite the blessings He has bestowed upon them by reviving the earth after its death and spreading His mercy, if We were to send upon the vegetation produced by the rain and upon their crops a harmful wind that destroyed or diminished them, and “they saw it turn yellow,” on the verge of perishing, “they would thereafter persist in disbelief.” They would forget the blessings they had previously enjoyed and hasten into disbelief.

Neither admonition nor rebuke benefits such people. “Indeed, you cannot make the dead hear, nor can you make the deaf hear the call”—and all the more so “when they turn their backs and retreat.” All the impediments preventing them from submitting and hearing in a beneficial manner have come together in them, just as the impediments mentioned here prevent the hearing of physical sound.

“Nor can you guide the blind out of their error,” for their blindness prevents them from accepting sight, so they have no receptivity to it (1).

“You can make none hear except those who believe in Our signs and submit themselves.” Those who benefit from being made to hear guidance are the ones who believe in Our signs with their hearts, submit to Our commands, and surrender themselves to Us. This is because they possess the powerful motive to accept counsel and admonition: their readiness to believe in every one of Allah’s signs and to carry out, to the best of their ability, Allah’s commands and prohibitions.