The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 459
PT. 7 AL-AN'ĀM CH. 6 وَلَقَدْ جِئْتُمُوْنَا فُرَادَى كَمَا خَلَقْنَكُمْ And now you come to Us. 95 one by one even as We created أَوَّلَ مَرَّةٍ وَتَرَكْتُم مَّا خَوَلْنَكُمْ you at first, and you have left ظُهُورِكُمْ ۚ وَمَا نَرَى مَعَكُمُ behind you that which We bestowed upon you, and We see "18:49. who has forged this lie against God is the most guilty of men and cannot escape Divine punishment. But the verse also reminds deniers or rejecters that if the Quran is not a forged Book but the Word of God, as it actually is, then they are as great offenders as the one who forges a lie against God. In this case, it will be they who will be visited with Divine punishment. The second sentence, i. e. or says, It has been revealed to me while nothing has been revealed to him, may be taken as an explanation or elaboration of the first sentence, i. e. who forges a lie against Allah; or the first sentence is general, while the second is particular. For instance, falsely to ascribe any teaching to God will come under the first category, and to claim falsely that God has spoken to him particular words will come under the second. the By saying, I will send down the like of that which Allah has sent down, a disbeliever only borrows phraseology of those whom he addresses, viz. believers. Being a disbeliever in Divine revelation, he does not believe that God sends down anything, so he only quotes the expression made use of by believers concerning Divine revelation. Another instance of such usage is to 899 be met with in 5:44. The words, if thou couldst only see, signify that if anyone should witness the torment which the deniers of Prophets undergo when their souls leave their bodies, he would at once realize how severe is the torment of those who reject a Divine Messenger. This torment is not to be identified with the ordinary agonies of death, which are shared, under the general law of nature, by righteous and unrighteous alike, but to the specific punishment that clings to the rejecters of Prophets from the very moment of their death. The "punishment of disgrace" mentioned in the latter part of the verse refers, as the words "this day" indicate, not to the punishment of Hell but to the punishment which sinners begin to undergo immediately after death and before the Day of Resurrection. This is known as (Adhabul-Qabr), i. e. punishment in the grave, in Islamic religious terminology, or grave being the name given to the place where souls are kept after death but before Resurrection. Says the Holy Prophet: "When anyone dies, a window is opened out for him in the grave facing Heaven or Hell as the case may be" (Mājah, ch. on Qabr). This is, of course, not the final retribution but only preparatory to it.