The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 184
CH. 21 AL-ANBIYA' PT. 17 فَسْتَلُوهُمْ إِنْ كَانُوا يَنْطِقُونَ ) chief of them. So ask it and them if they can speak. '2399 فَرَجَعُوا إِلَى أَنْفُسِهِمْ فَقَالُوا إِنَّكُمْ أَنتُم Then they turned towards. 65 one another and said, 'You yourselves are surely in the wrong. ' الظَّلِمُونَ ثُمَّ نُكِسُوا عَلى رُءُ وَسِهِمْ لَقَدْ عَلِمْتَ And they were made to hang. 66 down their heads for shame and 2399. Important Words: ✓ is a particle of digression. Sometimes its meaning is either the cancellation of what precedes as in J i. e. nay (or nay rather or nay but), they are honoured servants (21:27); or transition from one object of discourse to another as in i. e. but you prefer the الحياة الدنيا present life (87:17). Sometimes it is also used to denote the passing from one subject to another without cancelling what precedes it and is syn. with (and), as ini. e. And it is a glorious Quran. Thus ↓ means, but; and; surely or verily (Lane). Here it is used in the sense of (surely). Commentary: is بل فعله كبيرهم هذا If the expression rendered as "somebody has surely done this," a stop will have to be placed after abs and the words while talking to his idolatrous people. In that case the sense of the words would be something like this: "Why should have I done this, their chief here may have done it," meaning thereby that "the fact is too evident to warrant any questioning or to need any explanation that I have done this, i. e. I have broken the idols. If I had not done this, could this lifeless block of stone have done this?" In this verse Abraham seems to have rebuked his people for their idolatrous practices and brought home to them the futility of those practices, first by breaking the idols and then by challenging their votaries to ask those idols to tell them who had broken them. The verse by implication points to one of the most important Divine attributes. Abraham confounded his idolatrous people by first breaking the idols and then by inferring therefrom will be treated as an independent that an idol which could not save itself sentence meaning, "here is the chief" from harm and which could not even of them. This is the meaning we have answer the call of its worshippers was adopted in the text and this seems to but a lifeless thing, fit to be thrown on be the more correct meaning. Or the the scrap-heap, and that his Lord was words lisa may have been the Ever-living God Who answered spoken ironically or by way of and accepted the prayers of His mockery by Abraham as was his wont servants. See also 20:90. 2098