Surah An-Naba, Ayah 13

Which was revealed in Makkah

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَـنِ الرَّحِيمِ

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.

Refutation against the Idolators' Denial of the Occurrence of the Day of Judgement

In rejection of the idolators' questioning about the Day of Judgement, due to their denial of its occurrence, Allah says,

عَمَّ يَتَسَآءَلُونَ - عَنِ النَّبَإِ الْعَظِيمِ

(What are they asking about About the great news,) meaning, what are they asking about They are asking about the matter of the Day of Judgement, and it is the great news. Meaning the dreadful, horrifying, overwhelming information.

الَّذِى هُمْ فِيهِ مُخْتَلِفُونَ

(About which they are in disagreement.) meaning, the people are divided into two ideas about it. There are those who believe in it and those who disbelieve in it. Then Allah threatens those who deny the Day of Judgement by saying,

Thereafter the verse reads:

وَجَعَلْنَا النَّهَارَ‌ مَعَاشًا (and made the day a source of livelihood....78:11). Man requires, together with sleep, other essentials of life, such as livelihood. Otherwise, the sleep will turn into death. If the world would have had only nights and no days, and man would have continued to sleep all the time, how would he have obtained his livelihood and other essentials, whereas day is the time when he could work hard and make activities in the daylight in order to earn a living. Thus the verses under comment purport to say that Allah has, in order to complete the comforts of life, made the night a cloak and the day for earning a living. وَجَعَلْنَا سِرَ‌اجًا وَهَّاجًا .

Now attention is drawn to the comforts we get from the sky. The most useful thing in the sky is the light of the sun. It is mentioned in the following verse: وَجَعَلْنَا سِرَ‌اجًا وَهَّاجًا . (and created a luminous lamp [ the sun ]....78:13). Then, among the useful things below the sky, the most beneficial and the most essential thing is the raining clouds which are mentioned thus:

The Arab people were not disbelievers in the Hereafter. But they did not believe in a Hereafter of such a nature as is mentioned in the Quran. In other words, they doubted that by rejecting Muhammad, they would face degradation and humiliation in the world of the Hereafter.