(24–29) “When it is said to them, ‘What has your Lord sent down?’ they reply, ‘Legends of the ancients.’ Thus they will bear their own burdens in full on the Day of Resurrection, along with some of the burdens of those whom they mislead without knowledge. How evil is what they bear! Those before them also plotted, but Allah struck their structure at its foundations, so its roof collapsed upon them from above, and the punishment came upon them from where they did not perceive.”
Allah Most High describes the intensity with which the polytheists rejected His signs: “When it is said to them, ‘What has your Lord sent down?’” That is, when they are asked about the Quran and the revelation—the greatest blessing Allah has bestowed upon His servants—“What do you say about it? Will you give thanks for this blessing and acknowledge it, or will you deny it and obstinately reject it?”
They give the ugliest and most odious answer, saying that it is “legends of the ancients”—that is, a lie fabricated by Muhammad and falsely attributed to Allah, consisting merely of tales from earlier peoples, handed down from one generation to the next, some true and some false. They made this claim, called their followers to it, and thus bore both their own burden and that of everyone who followed them until the Day of Resurrection.
His words, “along with some of the burdens of those whom they mislead without knowledge,” mean: some of the burdens of the unquestioning followers who possess no knowledge beyond what these leaders called them to. The leaders therefore bear the sin of that to which they called them. As for those who possess knowledge, each bears his own crime independently, for he knew what they knew. “How evil is what they bear!” That is, how wretched are the burdens weighing heavily upon their backs: their own burdens and those of the people they led astray.
“Those before them also plotted” against their messengers and employed every manner of stratagem to reject what they had brought. They built immense edifices out of their plotting, but “Allah struck their structure at its foundations”—that is, His command struck it at its very base and foundation—“so its roof collapsed upon them from above.” What they had built thus became the very punishment by which they were tormented, “and the punishment came upon them from where they did not perceive.” They had imagined that this structure would benefit them and protect them from punishment, but their punishment came through the very thing they had built and established.
This is among the finest parables illustrating how Allah thwarts the plots of His enemies. After rejecting the messengers, they deliberated and devised ways to counter what the messengers had brought. They established false principles and foundations to which they would appeal and by which they would reject what the messengers came [with]. They also employed stratagems to inflict harm and injury upon the messengers and their followers. Yet their plotting became a calamity upon them, and their own planning became their destruction. This was because their plot was evil, and “an evil plot ensnares none but its own authors.” This is their punishment in this world, while the punishment of the Hereafter is even more humiliating. Therefore He says: