أَم أَمِنتُم مَن فِي السَّماءِ أَن يُرسِلَ عَلَيكُم حاصِبًا ۖ فَسَتَعلَمونَ كَيفَ نَذيرِ
Are you secure that He who is in the sky will not unleash upon you a rain of stones? Soon you will know how My warning has been!
EXEGESIS
Ḥāṣib is a windstorm that picks up small stones and pebbles with itself. It is specifically the punishment that befell the tribe of Prophet Lot (a) (54:34, 29:40).
Apparently, Soon you will know how My warning has been is the consequence of the rain of stones. That is: Are you secure that you would not come to learn about My warning through the occurrence of a rain of stones? Another possibility for this last part is that it is an independent statement as we have translated it, Soon you will know how My warning has been! In the first meaning, the fāʾ expresses the result and consequence of the previous statement (tafrīʿ), while in the second meaning it expresses a temporal separation and order between the two statements (tarākhī).
EXPOSITION
Adding to the previous verse, this verse mentions another aspect of mankind’s helplessness and his need to his Lord. It poses another threat to the audience by talking about another possible punishment that can completely destroy a city or community.
The punishment of rains of stones has indeed occurred to some of the previous nations who were not grateful for God’s bounties: And the people of Lot denied the warnings. We unleashed a rain of stones upon them, excepting the family of Lot, whom We delivered at dawn, as a blessing from Us. Thus do We reward those who give thanks (54:33-35). Lot’s tribe has been identified as ungrateful, wasteful, and profligate elsewhere in the Quran (7:81). Thus, anyone who has these attributes should fear such a punishment, for there is no change in God’s custom and tradition: A precedent of those We have sent from among Our apostles before you, and you will not find any change in Our precedent (17:77).
Not only did this punishment occur to the people of Lot many centuries ago, but some of the audience of the Quran or their fathers witnessed a similar punishment occurring in Mecca in 570 CE (the birth year of the Prophet), also known as the Year of the Elephant (ʿām al-fīl): Have you not regarded how your Lord dealt with the Men of the Elephant? Did He not make their stratagems go awry, and send against them flocks of birds, pelting them with stones of shale, thus making them like chewed-up straw? (105:1-5). God indeed saved Mecca and its people and gave them security, so that they may worship Him alone in gratitude: So they shall worship the Lord of this house, who has fed them [and saved them] from hunger, and secured them from fear (106:3-4). A rain of stones is not limited to miraculous punishments, but could also include natural events such as tornadoes, or cosmological events such as the striking of meteors or asteroids with the earth.
These verses have been elaborated on further elsewhere in the Quran: And when distress befalls you at sea, those whom you invoke besides Him are forsaken. But when He delivers you to land, you are disregardful [of Him]. And man is very ungrateful. Do you feel secure that He will not make the coastland swallow you, or He will not unleash upon you a rain of stones? Then you will not find any defender for yourselves. Do you feel secure that He will not send you back into it another time and unleash against you a shattering gale and drown you because of your unfaith? Then you will not find for yourselves any redresser against Us (17:67-69).
The objective of these verses is to make mankind realise how weak and helpless he is, haply he may take heed and repent. Say: ‘He is able to send upon you a punishment from above you or from under your feet’ (6:65). People are secure neither from below nor above. So how come they walk away so arrogantly and ignorantly? How can they despise the signs and revelations of their Lord? ‘Glory be to God, do you not believe in the resurrection? And do you not fear the meticulous reckoning [of God]?’
Another meaning for the last part of the verse is: so that you will know how were My warners. That is, if My punishment befalls you, you will then realise the truthfulness of the warners that I sent for you: This is what the All-Beneficent had promised, and the apostles had spoken the truth! (36:52).
It is indeed a result of God’s blessedness that He does not seize His disbelieving and disobedient servants by these punishments.
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
- Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
[1] Bahrayn; Farhang, under ḥ-ṣ-b.
[2] Nahj, letter 41.
[3] Razi, 30/592; Qurtubi, 19/216.
[4] Psalms 73:25.