(44–46) “Even if they were to see a fragment of the sky falling, they would say, ‘Merely a mass of clouds.’ * So leave them until they encounter their Day on which they will be struck down—the Day when their scheming will avail them nothing, nor will they be helped.”

Allah Most High says, [mentioning] and explaining that the polytheists who deny the evident truth have rebelled [against the truth] and become hardened in falsehood: even if every proof were established in support of the truth, they would not follow it, but would oppose and stubbornly resist it.

“Even if they were to see a fragment of the sky falling”—that is, even if dazzling signs were to descend upon them from heaven in the form of fragments—great pieces of punishment—“they would say, ‘Merely a mass of clouds.’” That is, they would say: These are simply clouds heaped up in the usual way. Thus, they would pay no heed to the signs they had witnessed or take any lesson from them. There is no remedy for such people except punishment and chastisement. He therefore says:

“So leave them until they encounter their Day on which they will be struck down.”

⦗818⦘

It is the Day of Resurrection, [on which] they will suffer punishment and chastisement whose extent cannot be measured and whose horror cannot be described.

“The Day when their scheming will avail them nothing”—neither little nor much. Although their schemes may enable them to live for a short while in this world, on the Day of Resurrection their scheming will vanish, their efforts will come to nothing, and they will be unable to defend themselves against Allah’s punishment: “nor will they be helped.”