The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 573
PT. 9 AL-A'RĀF CH. 7 اوَا مِنَ أَهْلُ الْقُرَى أَنْ يَأْتِيَهُمْ بَأْسُنَا And are the people of these. 99 towns secure from "the coming of Our punishment upon them in the early part of the forenoon while they are engaged in play?995 ضُحًى وَهُمْ يَلْعَبُونَ افَآمِنُوْا مَكْرَ اللهِ فَلَا يَأْمَنُ مَكْرَ اللهِ Are they then secure from. 100 إِلَّا الْقَوْمُ الْخَسِرُونَ the design of Allah? And none feels secure from the design of & save the people that Allah perish. 996 words (people of these towns) refer to the people of the time of the Holy Prophet to whom the Quran now turns as a fitting sequel to the story of bygone peoples who were destroyed by God for rejecting their Prophets. The verse thus purports to warn the people of Mecca and other towns of Arabia that their turn is fast approaching and that the punishment of God may overtake them at any moment of negligence. 995. Commentary: Whereas the preceding verse mentioned the time of night and sleep, the present one refers to the time of forenoon and play—both times of extreme negligence and forgetfulness. 996. Commentary: As stated under 7:98 above, the Quran mentioned the fate of peoples that had opposed the Prophets of God in times gone by in order to warn opponents of the Holy Prophet that they also could not expect to escape a a7:5. similar fate if they persisted in their opposition. The Prophets who have been mentioned in the preceding verses lived either in Arabia itself or in the neighbouring countries and stories of the fate that befell their opponents were still current among the contemporaries of the Holy Prophet. The home of the ‘Ādites was in Yemen, but their conquests extended over the whole of Arabia. Arab tradition represents them as conquerors of the whole world of furnishes no proof of this claim. Persia, India and China, but history 1013 The territory of the tribe of Thamūd lay between Medina and Syria. The Holy Prophet passed through the ruins of their dwelling places during his expedition to Tabūk. The tribe of Thamud were worshippers of idols, among them being the Lāt and the 'Uzzā. The Midianites also lived in the north of Arabia near the coast of the Red Sea. The history of all these