7. Al-A'raaf

So the Trembling, the violent earthquake, seized them, and they lay lifeless prostrate in their habitations, keeled over their knees, dead.

Those who denied Shu‘ayb (alladhīna kadhdhabū Shu‘ayban, this constitutes the subject [of the sentence], the predicate of which is [introduced by the following ka-an, ‘as if’]), it is as if (ka-an, has been softened, its subject omitted, in other words [understand it as] ka-annahum) they had never dwelt, [never] had residence, there, in those dwelling-places of theirs; those who denied Shu‘ayb, they were the losers (the emphasis effected by the repetition of the relative clause [alladhīna kadhdhabū Shu‘ayban, ‘those who denied Shu‘ayb’] and what follows it is intended as a refutation of what they had said previously [sc. ‘if you follow Shu‘ayb, you shall indeed be losers’]).

So he turned back on them, and said, ‘O my people, I have conveyed to you the Messages of my Lord and advised you sincerely, but you believe not: so why should I grieve for a disbelieving people?’ (the interrogative is meant [rhetorically] as a negation).

And We did not send a prophet to any city but that, when they denied him, We seized, We punished, its people with misery, abject poverty, and hardship, illness, so that they might be humble, [so that they might be] self-effaced, and so believe.

Then We gave them in place of evil, the chastisement, good, wealth and health, until they multiplied, and said, out of ingratitude towards this grace: ‘Hardship and happiness befell our fathers before’, just as it has befallen us, and this is nothing but the habit of time, and not the consequence of God, so remain firm in what you follow. God, exalted be He, says: So We seized them, with the chastisement, suddenly, while they perceived not, beforehand the time of its coming.

Yet had the people of the towns, the deniers, believed, in God and the messengers [sent] to them, and been fearful, of unbelief and acts of disobedience, We would have indeed opened upon them (read la-fatahnā or la-fattahnā) blessings from the heaven, by way of rain, and earth, by way of vegetation; but they denied, the messengers, and so We seized them, We punished them, on account of what they used to earn.

Do the people of the towns, the deniers, feel secure from the coming of Our might, Our chastisement, upon them at night while they are sleeping?, unaware of it?

Or, do the people of the towns feel secure from the coming of Our might upon them in the daytime while they are playing?

Has it not been shown, [has it not] become clear, to those who inherit the earth, as a [place of] habitation, after, the destruction of, those who inhabited it that, (an is the softened form and constitutes the subject [of the verb], its noun having been omitted, in other words [understand it as] annahu), if We will, We could smite them, with chastisement, for their sins?, as We smote those before them? (the hamza in the four instances are meant to indicate rebuke, and the [particles] fa, ‘so’, and wa, ‘and’, which have been inserted in two instances [each], are meant to indicate a supplement; a variant reading [for a-wa-amina] has aw amina, ‘or do [they] feel secure’, in the [second] instance, as a supplement). And, We, seal up their hearts so that they do not hear, the admonition, in a way so as to reflect.