Tafseer of The Dunes · Al-Ahqaf · 46:27
And We have already destroyed what surrounds you of [those] cities, and We have diversified the signs [or verses] that perhaps they might return [from disbelief].
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The explanation of the saying of the Exalted: En voorzeker, Wij hebben de steden om jullie heen vernietigd, en Wij hebben de tekenen in veelvoud uiteengezet, opdat zij zouden terugkeren. (46:27)
The Exalted, whose praise is sublime, says to the unbelievers of the Quraysh, warning them of His violence and His overwhelming power, that it may descend upon them on account of their unbelief: And indeed, We have destroyed — O people — of the towns those which lay around your town, such as al-Ḥijr of Thamūd, and the land of Sodom, and Maʾrib and the like; We warned their inhabitants with exemplary punishments, and We laid their dwellings to waste and made them ruins fallen upon their roofs.
And His saying and We have set forth the signs in manifold ways — He says: and We admonished them with all sorts of admonitions, and We reminded them with various forms of admonition and proofs, and We made that clear to them.
As Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: Ibn Zayd said, concerning His saying and We have set forth the signs in manifold ways: he said: We made them clear. That they might return — He says: that they might turn back from that upon which they persisted in unbelief in Allah and His signs. In the sentence something has been omitted whose mention has been left out because the sense of the sentence already indicates it, namely: but they refused anything other than persisting in their unbelief, and continuing in their error; thereupon We destroyed them, and no helper shall help them against Us. He, whose praise is sublime, says: so then those whom We destroyed of the earlier bygone nations gained no benefit from their idols and their gods, whose worship they had taken as an offering by which they brought themselves, as they claimed, closer to their Lord, at the moment when Our might came upon them; these [idols] did not deliver them from Our punishment, nor would they intercede for them with their Lord as they claim.
And this is an argument of Allah on behalf of His Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ against the polytheists of his people; He says to them: if your gods whom you worship besides Allah were to benefit you in the least, or were to help you with Allah as you claim — namely, that you worship them only that they may bring you closer to Allah — then they would have come to the benefit of those who were before you of the nations that I destroyed on account of their worship of those [idols], and they would have averted the punishment from them when it descended, or they would have interceded for them with their Lord; for they were, in their worship of it, in the very same condition in which you are; yet those [idols] caused them harm and did not benefit them.
