al-Shūrā

أَوْ يُوبِقْهُنَّ بِمَا كَسَبُوا وَيَعْفُ عَنْ كَثِيرٍ

وَيَعْلَمَ الَّذِينَ يُجَادِلُونَ فِي آيَاتِنَا مَا لَهُمْ مِنْ مَحِيصٍ

34. Or He may destroy them [the ships] because of that which their [owners] have earned. And He pardons many [people and does not drown them].
35. And those who dispute as regards Our Ayat [Signs, Verses] may know that there is no place of refuge for them.

The verbal form:

derives from the root w-b-q (“destroy”) and it is ad hoc employed in the sense of “drown.” The word mahis, deriving from h-’-s (“flee, escape”), designates “way of return and deliverance.” To depict Divine Glory, the blessed Verses in question further add:

As it was reflected in the preceding Verses, human afflictions are often the consequences of his own deeds; however, man finds Divine Mercy;

If He does not grant His Mercy, no one besides the Infallible Prophets and Imams and also those pure and sincere at heart may not stay away from Divine Chastisement, as it is reflected elsewhere⁶ in the Holy Qur’an:

God Almighty is Omnipotent and may impede winds from blowing so that ships stay standstill in the heart of oceans and He is All-Able to turn winds into severe storms to crush colossal ships and roll them on gigantic waves, but His All-Inclusive Mercy impedes the same. Verse 35 says:

Such people may not be granted Divine Forgiving, since they willfully rise against him and persist in their enmity and obduracy. They are deprived of His emanating fountainhead of Forgiving and Mercy and may not find deliverance from His torment. As mentioned above, the word mahis, deriving from h-’-s (“flee, escape”), designates “way of return and deliverance.” The word mahis denotes place and is employed in the sense of place of refuge.