Al Ḥijr

قَالُوا بَلْ جِئْنَاكَ بِمَا كَانُوا فِيهِ يَمْتَرُونَ

وأَتَيْنَاكَ بِالْحَقّ‌ِ وَإِنَّا لَصَادِقُونَ

63. “They said: ‘Nay, but we have come to you with that in which they have been doubting’.”
64. “And we have come to you with the truth, and we are certainly truthful.”

The Qur’an has repeatedly raised this issue that the pagans used to request the prophets to accelerate the Divine outrage and punishment and used to say:

‘… then bring us what you promise us to, if you are of the truthful ones”. ¹

Meaning that if you are honest, show us the outrage and they used to ridicule and mock all the warnings. As for the Divine outrage, they were skeptic as to its occurrence whether in this world or in the next. Allah explains in these verses that the outrage, which is the object of skepticism of the pagans, will definitely come. The verse says:

“They said: ‘Nay, but we have come to you with that in which they have been doubting’.”

Anyway, the angels did not leave Lot in expectation for a long time and they explicitly stated that they had brought him something which his people were in doubt about. That is, they were commissioned to inflict a painful and severe chastisement against them which Lot had repeatedly warned them about and they had never taken it seriously. To emphasize, they implied that they had brought Lot an unequivocal and an obvious reality for him. That is, a certain and decisive chastisement for those unbelieving and deviant group.

The verse says:

“And we have come to you with the truth…”

To stress further, they added:

“…and we are certainly truthful.”

That is, this group has destroyed all the bridges behind them and there is no room left for any type of mediation or discussion about them. They said such so as Lot would stop thinking about any mediation efforts and become aware of the fact that they were not in the least worthy of such steps to be taken for them.

Footnotes

1. 1. Surah Al-’A‘raf, No. 7, verse 70