The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 418
CH. 15 AL-HIJR PT. 14 وَأَتَيْنَهُمْ أَيْتِنَا فَكَانُوا عَنْهَا مُعْرِضِينَ And We gave them Our. 82 Signs, but they turned away from them. 1785 means the rejection of all because, first, the basic teachings of all Divine Messengers are the same and so the rejection of one Prophet implies the rejection of all others, and, secondly, the rejection of a Prophet implies rejection of God, Who is the Sender of all Prophets. This is why Jesus warned the Jews that by rejecting him they were rejecting Moses; for if they had really believed in Moses, they should not have hesitated to accept him (John 5:46). This is true of all Prophets and Messengers of God. He who rejects the Prophet of his own day shows by his act of rejection, that if he had lived in the time of any other Prophet, he would have rejected him also. Hence it is that the rejection of one Prophet, according to the Quran, is tantamount to the rejection of all Prophets and the acceptance of one is tantamount to the acceptance of all of them. See also 2:137, 286; 3:85 & 4:153. The next few verses of the present Surah and some opening verses of the following Surah embody mighty prophecies and deal with subjects of very great import. 1785. Commentary: In the foregoing verses three different peoples have been mentioned: (1) the people of Lot; (2) the people of Shu'aib; and (3) the people of Ṣāliḥ. The order in which they have been mentioned is noteworthy. They have not been mentioned in their chronological order but in the order of the distance of their habitations from Mecca. The land of the people of Lot was the most distant of the three places and so it has been mentioned first. Next in order of distance were the people of Aikah, and they have been put next. Hijr being situated between Tabūk and Medina, the tribe of Thamūd were the nearest of the three and it has consequently been mentioned last of all. In the order of time the people of Hijr preceded the people of Lot and the people of Aikah came last. This unusual order has been adopted in preference to the more natural one with a view to producing the greatest psychological effect, the tribe that was least known to the Arabs being mentioned first and the tribe which the Arabs knew best being mentioned last. 1626 It may also be incidentally mentioned here that in this Surah mention has been made of those peoples in whom the art of writing was not much in vogue, and who were regarded by the Arabs as their ancestors. Adam is, of course, the common progenitor of mankind. Lot was a near relative of Abraham and as such, was among the ancestors of the Arabs. The tribe of Shu'aib were cousins of the Ishmaelites, and became ultimately absorbed by them. The tribe of Thamūd were a pure Arab tribe.