The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 327
PT. 13 R. 3. IBRAHİM CH. 14 وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لِرُسُلِهِمْ And those who disbelieved. 14 لَنُخْرِ جَنَّكُمْ مِّنْ أَرْضِنَا أَوْلَتَعُودُنَّ فِي مِلَتِنَا فَأَوْحَى إِلَيْهِمْ رَبُّهُمْ لَنُهْلِكَنَّ الظَّلِمِينَ said to their Messengers, 'We will, surely, expel you from our land unless you return to our religion. ' Then their Lord sent unto them the revelation: 'We will, surely, destroy the wrongdoers' 1668 97:89. bear with patience all the harm you do us, the Messengers of God make a confession of their weakness. Far from claiming any superiority over their opponents, they admit that their opponents excel them in material means and that if Divine help does not come to their succour, they would have to suffer untold pain and persecution at their hands. As, however, they had undertaken their task by the command of God, they would bear all hardships with patience and would thus prove that it I was not their own exaltation and aggrandizement that they had in view. And, as their trust was in God, they also knew that final success assured for them. 1668. Commentary: a was subtle This verse contains reference to a deep-rooted desire of the opponents of God's Messengers in all times. They ardently wish the Prophets to incline towards them a little and abstain from a wholesale denunciation of their beliefs that there may thus come about something like a compromise between the two parties. This desire of disbelievers has also been expressed in 68:10. But the Prophets always flatly refuse to agree to any such compromise and adhere unflinchingly to their principles, without deviating an hair's breadth from them. It is after disbelievers see that the Prophets accept no compromise that they launch a campaign of bitter persecution against them and thus either seek to force them back into their faith or compel them to leave their country, which includes extirpation by any other means. This is how disbelievers have treated God's Prophets throughout the ages the same offer of compromise on their part, the same disdainful rejection of this offer by the Prophets and the same campaign of bitter persecution launched against the latter by their opponents. In the words, We will surely destroy the wrongdoers, God has, as it were, turned the tables upon disbelievers. They had threatened the Prophets with expulsion from "our land" if they did not recant their faith. To this threat God replies by saying that, as the land is His and not theirs, so if it 1535