Verse 6
And there is not (wa-mā min: min is extra) a creature (dābba is that [creature] which treads [dabba]) in the earth but the sustenance thereof rests on God, [sustenance] which He has undertaken [to provide], out of His bounty, exalted be He. And He knows its habitation, its dwelling-place in this world — or in the loins — and its repository, after death, or in the womb. All, that which is mentioned, is in a manifest, a clear, Book, which is the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfūz).
Verse 7
And He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six days, the first of which was Sunday and the last, Friday — and His Throne, before creating them, was upon the water, borne by the winds — that He might try you (li-yabluwakum is semantically connected to khalaqa, ‘He [Who] created’), in other words, He created them and all that is beneficial and good for you in them, in order to test you: which of you is best in conduct, that is, [which of you] is most obedient to God. And if you were to say, O Muhammad (s), to them: ‘Truly you shall be raised again after death’, those who disbelieve will say, ‘This, Qur’ān that speaks of resurrection — or, [this] that you are saying — is nothing but manifest, clear, sorcery’ (sihrun: a variant reading has sāhirun, ‘sorcerer’, in which case the reference is to the Prophet (s).
Verse 8
And if we postpone the chastisement for them until, the arrival of, a reckoned time, [reckoned] moments, they will surely say, in mockery: ‘What is detaining it?’, what is preventing it from being sent down? God, exalted be He, says: Verily on the day when it comes to them, it cannot be averted, warded off, from them, and that, chastisement, which they derided shall surround them, [it] shall come down upon them.
Verse 9
And if We cause, the disbelieving, man to taste some mercy from Us, [such as] wealth and [good] health, and then wrest it from him, lo! he is despairing, having lost hope of God’s mercy, ungrateful, intensely ungrateful to Him.
Verse 10
But if We cause him to taste prosperity after some misery, [such as] impoverishment and hardship, that had befallen him, assuredly he will say, ‘The ills, the afflictions, have gone from me’, when he had not anticipated that they would go away; yet still he does not give thanks for this; lo!, he is exultant, wanton, boastful, to people of what he has been given;
Verse 11
save, but, those who endure, misery, [patiently] and perform righteous deeds, during times of comfort; theirs will be forgiveness and a great reward, which is Paradise.
Verse 12
Perhaps, O Muhammad (s), you might [think to] leave out some of what is revealed to you, such that you do not convey it to them, for they do not take it seriously, and that your breast should be straitened by it, by reciting it to them, because they say, ‘Why has a treasure not been sent down for him, or an angel not come with him?’, to confirm his sincerity, as we had requested? You are but a warner, and yours is only to convey [the Message], not to produce what they have requested; and God is Guardian over all things, He is Preserver [of all things], so He will requite them [accordingly].
Verse 13
Or do they say, ‘He has invented it’?, that is, the Qur’ān. Say: ‘Then bring ten sūras the like thereof, in terms of clarity and rhetorical excellence, invented, for you are Arabs who speak [Arabic] eloquently, like myself — he challenged them to these [ten sūras] first, and then to one sūra — and call, in order [for them] to assist you, upon whom you can beside God, that is, [on] other than Him, if you are truthful’, about it [the Qur’ān] being an invention of lies.
Verse 14
Then, if they, that is, those on whom you call for assistance, do not answer you, know, this address is to the idolaters, that it has been revealed, enwrapped, only in God’s knowledge, not as an invention of lies against Him, and that (an is softened, in other words [understand it as] annahu) there is no god save Him. Will you then submit?, after this definitive argument; in other words: ‘Submit!’
Verse 15
He who desires the life of this world and its adornment, by persisting in idolatry — it is said that this was [revealed] regarding the dissimulators — We shall repay them their deeds, that is, the requital of any good that they did, such as charity or kindness to kin, in it, by giving them abundant provision, and therein, that is, in this world, they shall not be defrauded, they shall [not] be made to suffer diminution in anything.
Verse 16
Those are they for whom there is nothing in the Hereafter but the Fire; what they contrive will have failed, [will] be invalid, therein, that is, in the Hereafter, and will not be rewarded, and useless is that which they used to do.
Verse 17
Is he who relies on a clear proof, a clear statement, from his Lord, meaning the Prophet (s), or the believers; it [the proof] being the Qur’ān, [a clear proof] which is followed by a witness, to it of its veracity [as being], from Him, that is, from God; he [the witness] being Gabriel, and before it, [before] the Qur’ān, was the Book of Moses, the Torah, also a witness to it, as an example and a mercy? (imāman wa-rahmatan is a circumstantial qualifier) [is such a person] like one who is not so? No! Those, that is, the ones who rely on a clear proof, they believe in it, that is, in the Qur’ān, and so for them will be Paradise; but he who disbelieves in it of the partisans, [namely] all the disbelievers, the Fire shall be his appointed place. So do not be in doubt, in uncertainty, concerning it, concerning the Qur’ān. Truly it is the Truth from your Lord, but most of mankind, that is, the people of Mecca, do not believe.
Verse 18
And who, that is, none, does greater wrong than he who invents a lie concerning God?, by ascribing to Him partner and child. Those, they shall be brought before their Lord, on the Day of Resurrection, amid [the rest of] creation, and the witnesses (ashhād is the plural of shāhid) namely, the angels, who will bear witness that the messengers conveyed [the Message] and that the disbelievers denied [them], will say, ‘These are they who lied concerning their Lord’. Surely the curse of God is upon the wrong-doers, the idolaters;
Verse 19
they who bar [people] from God’s way, [from] the religion of Islam, desiring [to have] it, seeking that the way be, crooked; and in the Hereafter they (hum, ‘they’, is [reiterated] for emphasis) are disbelievers.
Verse 20
Such will not escape, God, in the earth and, beside God, other than Him, they [can] have no allies, [no] helpers to protect them against His chastisement. For them the chastisement will be double, for their having led others astray. They could not hear, the truth, nor did they use to see, it; that is to say, because of their extreme aversion to it, it is as though they did not have the [physical] capacity for it.
Verse 21
Such are they who have lost their souls, for their journey’s end shall be to the Fire, made everlasting for them; and that which they used to invent, [of lies] concerning God, in the way of claiming [that He has] a partner, has failed them, is absent [before them].
Verse 22
Without doubt, verily, they will be the greatest losers in the Hereafter.
Verse 23
Truly those who believe and perform righteous deeds and humble themselves, [who] are at peace and feel reassured, or [who] repent, before their Lord: such will be the inhabitants of Paradise, abiding therein.
Verse 24
The likeness, the description, of the two parties, the disbelievers and the believers, is as the blind and the deaf, this being the likeness of the disbeliever, and the one who sees and the one who hears, this being the likeness of the believer, are they equal in likeness? No! Will you not then remember? (tadhakkarūn: the original tā’ [of tatadhakkarūn] has been assimilated with the dhāl) [will you not then] be admonished?
Verse 25
And verily We sent Noah to his people [and he said]: ‘I am (annī: a variant reading has innī, in which case ‘he said’ has been omitted) for you a clear warner, one whose warning is plain.
Verse 26
That, you worship none but God. Lo! I fear for you, should you worship other than Him, the chastisement of a painful day’, painful in this world and in the Hereafter.
Verse 27
The council, the respected elders, of his people who disbelieved, said: ‘We see you but a mortal like us, and you have no merit over us, and we see not that any follow you save the vilest among us, the riffraff among us, such as the weavers and the shoemakers, [through] rash opinion (bādiya’l-ra’ya: read with hamza or without [in both cases]), in other words, impulsively, without thinking you over (it [bādiya’l-ra’ya] is in the accusative because it is an adverbial clause, that is to say: at the time that their opinion first came into being). We do not see that you have any merit over us, for which you would deserve our following you; nay, we deem you liars’, with regard to your claim to [be bringing] a Message: they [the disbelievers] included his folk with him in their address [to him].
Verse 28
He said, ‘O my people, have you considered: — inform me — if I am [acting] upon a clear proof, a clear statement, from my Lord and He has given me mercy — prophethood — from Him, and it has been obscured, concealed, from you (‘amiyat, ‘obscured’, a variant reading has the passive ‘ummiyat), can we compel you to it, are we [able] to force you to accept it, while you are averse to it? We are not able to do that.
Verse 29
And O my people, I do not ask of you any wealth, which you should give me, for this, for conveying the Message. My wage, my reward, falls only upon God and I will not drive away those who believe, as you have commanded me; they shall surely meet their Lord, at the Resurrection, and He will requite them and exact vengeance for them from those who wronged them and drove them away. But I see you are a people who are ignorant, of the consequence of your affair.
Verse 30
And O my people, who would help, [who would] defend, me against God, that is, [against] His chastisement, if I drive them away?, in other words, there is none to help me. Will you not then remember? (tadhakkarūn: the original second tā’ [in tatadhakkarūn] has been assimilated with the dhāl), [will you not then] be admonished?
Verse 31
And I do not say to you, “I possess the treasure houses of God” nor, “I have knowledge of the Unseen”; nor do I say, “I am an angel”, nay, I am human like you. Nor do I say to those whom your eyes scorn that God will not give them any good — God knows best what is in their souls, [in] their hearts. Lo! if I were to say this, then indeed I would be of the evildoers’.
Verse 32
They said, ‘O Noah, you have disputed with us and disputed with us at length, so bring upon us that wherewith you are threatening us, in the way of chastisement, if you are of the truthful’.
Verse 33
He said, ‘Only God will bring it upon you, if He wills, to hasten it on for you, for the decision is His, not mine; and you cannot escape Him, elude God.
Verse 34
And my counsel will not benefit you if I desire to counsel you when God desires to keep you astray (the response to the conditional is indicated by wa-lā yanfa‘ukum nushī, ‘and my counsel will not benefit you’). He is your Lord and to Him you will be brought back’.
Verse 35
God, exalted be He, says: Or do they, the disbelievers of Mecca, say, ‘He has invented it’?, Muhammad (s) has invented the Qur’ān? Say: ‘If I have invented it, then my crime will be upon me, my sin [will be upon me], that is, the punishment for it; and I am innocent of what you commit’, of crime, when you attribute invention to me.
Verse 36
And it was revealed to Noah that: ‘None of your people will believe except he who has already believed. Do not be distressed, grieved, because of what they do, in the way of idolatry. So, he [Noah] invoked God against them with the words: My Lord, leave not [one of the disbelievers] upon the earth [Q. 71:26]. God responded to this invocation of his and said:
Verse 37
Build the Ark, the ship, under Our eyes, under Our watch and protection, and by Our inspiration, [by] Our command, and do not address Me concerning those who have done evil, [those who] have disbelieved, [by asking] that I should refrain from destroying them; lo! they shall be drowned’.
Verse 38
And he was building the Ark (yasna‘ is narrating a past state [in the present tense]) and whenever a council, a group, of his people passed him, they scoffed at him, mocked him. He said, ‘Though you scoff at us, yet we scoff at you, even as you scoff, when we are saved, while you drown;
Verse 39
and you shall know to whom (man introduces the relative clause which constitutes the direct object of the [action of] ‘knowing’) will come a chastisement degrading him, and upon whom an enduring, an everlasting, chastisement will fall’.
Verse 40
Such that when (hattā represents the objective for [the action of] ‘building’) Our command came, for their destruction, and the, baker’s, oven gushed forth, with water — this was the sign for Noah — We said, ‘Load therein, in the ship, of every kind, [of every] male and female, that is, of every species of these two, two, a male and a female (ithnayn constitutes the direct object). According to the story, God gathered for Noah all the beasts of prey and birds and other [animals]; he [Noah] would go through every species [to select them] with his hands, and his right hand would fall upon a male and the left upon a female, whereupon he would take them aboard the ship; and your family — that is, his wife and children — save those against whom the Word has already gone forth, from among them, that they be destroyed: this was his wife and his son Canaan, in contrast with Shem, Ham and Japheth, whom he took aboard together with their three wives, and those who believe’. And none but a few believed with him: it is said that these were six men and their wives; it is also said that the number of all those aboard the ship was eighty, half of whom were men and the other half, women.
Verse 41
And he, Noah, said, ‘Embark therein! In the Name of God be its course and its mooring (read majrāhā and marsāhā, or mujrāhā and mursāhā, both being verbal nouns, meaning, the length of its course and where it docks, in other words, the entire journey). Truly my Lord is Forgiving, Merciful’, for He did not destroy us.
Verse 42
And it sailed with them amid waves like mountains, in terms of their height and size, and Noah called out to his son, Canaan, who was standing away, from the ship, ‘O my son, embark with us and do not be with the disbelievers!’
Verse 43
He said, ‘I shall take refuge in a mountain that will protect me, preserve me, from the water’. Said he, ‘This day there is none that can protect from God’s command, [from] His chastisement, except — but — him on whom He, God, has mercy’, he will be protected. God, exalted be He, says: And the waves came between them, so he was among the drowned.
Verse 44
And it was said, ‘O earth, swallow your waters, that have sprung forth from you — and it reabsorbed it [all] except for what came down from the sky and formed rivers and seas — and O heaven, abate!’, withhold the rain, and it did. And the waters subsided, decreased. And the affair was accomplished, the matter of the destruction of Noah’s people was complete, and it settled, [and] the ship came to rest, upon al-Jūdī, a mountain in Mespotamia (al-jazīra), near Mosul; and it was said: ‘Away with — perish — the evildoing, the disbelieving, folk!’
Verse 45
And Noah called out to his Lord and said, ‘My Lord, lo! my son, Canaan, is of my family, and You promised me that they would be saved, and truly Your promise is the Truth, which never fails, and You are the Most Just of Judges’, the most knowledgeable and the fairest of them.
Verse 46
He, [God] exalted be He, said: ‘O Noah, lo! he is not of your family, of those [who will be] saved, or of the followers of your religion; lo! it, that is, your asking me to save him, is not a righteous deed, for he is a disbeliever and there is no deliverance for disbelievers (‘āmalun ghayru sālihin, ‘it is not a righteous deed’: a variant reading has ‘āmila, the verb, with ghayra in the accusative, in which case the person governing [the verb ‘amila] is his son). So do not ask of Me (read either fa-lā tas’alanni, or fa-lā tas’alni) that whereof you have no knowledge, in respect to saving your son. I admonish you lest you be among the ignorant’, when you ask about what you do not know.
Verse 47
He said, ‘My Lord, I seek refuge in You, from [the sin], that I should ask of You that whereof I have no knowledge. Unless You forgive me, my excess, and have mercy on me I shall be among the losers’.
Verse 48
It was said, ‘O Noah, go down, disembark from the ship, in peace, in safety, or with a greeting, from Us and blessings, good things, upon you and upon some communities [that will spring] from those with you, in the ship, that is, from their children and their seed, those who are [and those who will be] the believers. And [there will be other] communities (read umamun), [to spring] from those with you, to whom We shall give enjoyment, in this world, and then a painful chastisement will befall them’, in the Hereafter, and these will be the disbelievers.
Verse 49
Those, that is, these verses, containing [stories such as] the story of Noah, are of the tidings of the Unseen, [of] the tales of that which was hidden from you, which We inspire in you, O Muhammad (s). You yourself did not know it, nor did your people [know it] before this, Qur’ān. So be patient, in conveying [the Message] and in [enduring] your people’s hurt, as Noah endured. Truly the, praiseworthy, sequel is for those who are God-fearing.
Verse 50
And, We sent, to ‘Ād their brother, from the tribe, Hūd. He said, ‘O my people, worship God!, affirm His Oneness. You have no god (min ilāhin: min is extra) other than He. You, in your worship of graven images, do but invent, [you do but] invent lies against God.
Verse 51
O my people, I do not ask of you any wage for it, for the affirmation of His Oneness. Lo! my wage falls only upon Him Who originated me, created me. Will you not understand?
Verse 52
And, O my people, ask forgiveness of your Lord, for [your] idolatry, then turn, return, to Him repentant, through obedience; He will release the sky, [He will release] the rain — for they had been denied it — upon you in abundance, with abundant rainfall, and He will add to you strength to your strength, through wealth and children. Do not turn away as sinners’, idolaters.
Verse 53
They said, ‘O Hūd, you have not brought us any clear proof, [any] evidence for what you say, and we are not going to forsake our gods on [the basis of] your saying, that is, because of what you say, and we are not believers in you.
Verse 54
We say nothing, concerning you, save that one of our gods has possessed you in some evil way’, rendering you insane, for your having cursed them, and so you are raving. He said, ‘Lo! I call God to bear witness, for me, and you, bear witness also, that I am innocent of what you associate, with Him,
Verse 55
beside Him; so plot against me, devise ways to destroy me, all together, you and your graven images, then give me no respite, grant me [no] reprieve.
Verse 56
Truly I have put my trust in God, my Lord and your Lord; there is no (mā min: min is extra) creature, no living thing that treads upon this earth, but He takes it by the forelock, that is, [but] He is its possessor and subjugator, so that no benefit or harm occurs except by His permission — the forelock is specifically used here because he who is taken by his forelock suffers the ultimate humiliation. Surely my Lord is on a straight path, that is, [on] the way of truth and justice.
Verse 57
And if you turn away (tawallaw: one of the two tā’ letters [of tatawallaw] has been omitted), that is, if you object, still I have conveyed to you that wherewith I was sent to you, and my Lord will set in place of you a folk other than you. You cannot injure Him in any way, by your idolatry. Truly My Lord is Preserver, Watcher, over all things’.
Verse 58
And when Our command, Our chastisement, came to pass We delivered Hūd and those who believed with him by a mercy, by guidance, from Us, and We delivered them from a harsh, a severe, chastisement.
Verse 59
And that was ‘Ād — [this is] an allusion to their remains; in other words, go forth in the land and look at these [remains]. God then describes their case, saying: they knowingly denied the signs of their Lord and disobeyed His messengers (rusulahu is in the plural, because when a person disobeys a messenger he has [effectively] disobeyed all of them, since they share a common principle in that [Message] with which they come, namely, [the principle of] God’s Oneness); and they, that is, the riffraff, followed the command of every rebellious tyrant, [every] leader of theirs who is obstinate with regard to the truth.
Verse 60
And a curse was made to follow them in this world, from people, and on the Day of Resurrection, a curse [will follow them] for all creatures to see. ‘Lo! ‘Ād disbelieved in, they knowingly denied, their Lord. Lo! away, [far] from God’s mercy, with ‘Ād, the folk of Hūd!’
Verse 61
And, We sent, to Thamūd their brother, from the tribe, Sālih. He said, ‘O my people, worship God!, affirm His Oneness. You have no god other than He. He it is Who produced you, [Who] began your creation, from the earth, by creating your father Adam from it, and has given you to live therein, He has made you inhabitants, living therein; so ask forgiveness of Him, from idolatry, then turn, return, to Him repentant, through [acts of] obedience. Truly my Lord is Near, to His creation by [virtue of] His knowledge, Responsive’, to those who ask of Him.
Verse 62
They said, ‘O Sālih, you had been one of promise among us, that is to say, we had hoped that you would become [our] chief, before this, that has issued from you. Do you forbid us to worship what our fathers worshipped?, in the way of graven images? Truly we are in grave doubt, [doubt] creating [great] uncertainty, concerning that to which you are calling us’, in the way of [affirming] God’s Oneness.
Verse 63
He said, ‘O my people, have you considered: if I am [acting] upon a clear proof, a [clear] statement, from my Lord, and He has given me from Him mercy, prophethood, who will help me, [who will] defend me, against God, [against] His chastisement, if I disobey Him? You would only be adding, by commanding me to do that, to my loss, [my] misguidance.
Verse 64
And, O my people, this is the she-camel of God, a sign for you (āyatan is a circumstantial qualifier operated by the demonstrative noun [hādhihi, ‘this’]). Leave her to eat in God’s earth and do not cause her any harm, [by] hamstringing [her], lest you be seized by a near chastisement’, if you do hamstring her.
Verse 65
But they hamstrung her, Qudār hamstrung her at their command, and he, Sālih, said, ‘Enjoy [yourselves], live, in your dwellings for three days, whereafter you will be destroyed. That is a promise that will not be belied’.
Verse 66
So, when Our command came, for their destruction, We delivered Sālih and those who believed with him, they numbered 4000, by a mercy from Us, and, We delivered them, from the ignominy of that day (read yawmi’idhin [if understood] as declinable, or read yawma’idhin on the basis of it [yawm, ‘day’] being annexed to an invariable [idhin, ‘that’], which is the majority view). Truly your Lord is the Strong, the Mighty, the Victor.
Verse 67
And those who did evil were seized by the Cry, so that they ended up lying lifeless prostrate in their habitations, keeled over their knees, dead,
Verse 68
as if (ka-an had been softened and its subject omitted, in other words [understand it as] ka’annahum) they had not dwelt there, in their dwelling-place: ‘Lo! Thamūd disbelieved in their Lord, lo! away with Thamūd!’ (this may be read, declined, li-Thamūdan, or left, as indeclinable, li-Thamūda, referring to the district or the tribe).
Verse 69
And verily Our messengers came to Abraham with good tidings, of [the birth of] Isaac and, after him, Jacob. They said, ‘Peace!’ (salāman is a verbal noun). He said, ‘Peace!’, be upon you, and did not delay to bring a roasted calf.
Verse 70
And when he saw their hands not reaching to it, he was suspicious of them and conceived, he kept secret in himself, a fear of them. They said, ‘Fear not. Lo! we have been sent to the people of Lot’, to destroy them.
Verse 71
And his wife, that is, Abraham’s wife, Sarah, standing by, serving them, laughed, at the good tiding of their destruction; and so We gave her the good tiding of Isaac, and, after Isaac, of Jacob, his son, whom she would live to see.
Verse 72
She said, ‘Woe to me! (yā waylatā is an expression used in [reaction to] a serious matter; the alif [suffixed in waylatā] substitutes for the yā’ of the genitive annexation [waylatī, ‘my woe’]). Shall I bear a child when I am an old woman, 99 years old, and this my husband is an old man?, 100 or 120 years old (shaykhan is in the accusative because it is a circumstantial qualifier, operated by the demonstrative import of dhā, ‘this’). Truly this is a strange thing’, that a child should be born to such an aged couple.
Verse 73
They said, ‘Are you astonished by God’s command?, [by] His power? The mercy of God and His blessings be upon you, O, people of the House!, the House of Abraham. Truly He is Praised, Glorious!’, Generous.
Verse 74
And when the awe, the fear, departed from Abraham and the good tiding came to him, of a child, he began to plead with Us, pleading with Our messengers, concerning the, matter of the, people of Lot.
Verse 75
Assuredly Abraham was forbearing, long-suffering, imploring, penitent, always returning [to God] in repentance: thus he said to them, ‘Would you destroy a town in which there are 300 believers?’ They said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Would you destroy a town in which there are 200 believers?’ They said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Would you destroy a town in which there are 40 believers?’ They said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Would you destroy a town in which there are 14 believers?’ They said, ‘No’. He said, ‘What if there were one believer in it?’ They said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Lot is in it’. They said, ‘We know full well who is in it’ … to the end [of the narrative].
Verse 76
When he had pleaded with them at length, they said: ‘O Abraham, desist from this, pleading. Truly your Lord’s command, for their destruction, has gone forth, and truly there will come upon them a chastisement which cannot be repelled’.
Verse 77
And when Our messengers came to Lot, he was distressed, he was grieved on their account, and felt constrained in his power to protect them, because they had handsome faces and were dressed as [visiting] guests, and so he feared for them from his people, and he said, ‘This is a distressful, a very difficult, day’.
Verse 78
And his people, when they became aware of them, came to him, running, hastening, towards him — and previously, before they came, they had been committing abominations, namely, penetrative sexual intercourse with men. He, Lot, said, ‘O my people! Here are my daughters, marry with them; they are purer for you. So fear God, and do not degrade me, [do not] disgrace me, before my guests. Is there not among you any upright man?’, to enjoin decency and forbid indecency?
Verse 79
They said, ‘You know full well that we have no right to, no need of, your daughters, and you know well what we desire’, in the way of sexual intercourse with men.
Verse 80
He said, ‘Would that I had strength, power, to resist you or could resort to some strong support!’, [to] some clan that would help me, I would surely fall upon you. So, when the angels saw this,
Verse 81
they said, ‘O Lot, truly we are messengers of your Lord. They shall not reach you, with any harm, so travel with your family during a part of the night, and let not one of you turn round, lest they see the terrible predicament that will befall them, except for your wife: (read illā imra’atuka, in the nominative, as a substitute for ahadun; a variant reading has illā imra’ataka, in the accusative, as [her being] an exception among [his] ‘family’, in other words, do no take her along when you travel) lo! she shall be smitten by that which smites them: it is said that he did not take her along with him; it is also said that she did set out [with them] and turned round, and so exclaimed, ‘Woe is my people!’, at which point a stone struck her and killed her. When he [Lot] asked them about the time of their destruction, they replied: Truly their tryst is [for] the morning, and when he said, ‘I want it to be sooner’, they said: is the morning not nigh [enough]?’
Verse 82
So when Our command, for their destruction, came to pass We made their uppermost, that is, their cities, the nethermost — when Gabriel raised them to the sky and dropped them upside down to the earth, and We rained upon them stones of baked clay, clay baked in fire, one after another,
Verse 83
marked, [each one of them] with the name of the person it would strike, with your Lord (‘inda rabbik is an adverbial qualifier for these [stones]), and they, the stones — or their lands — are not far from the evildoers, that is, [from] the people of Mecca.