Verse. 1927

١٦ - ٱلنَّحْل

16 - An-Nahl

قَدْ مَكَرَ الَّذِيْنَ مِنْ قَبْلِہِمْ فَاَتَى اللہُ بُنْيَانَہُمْ مِّنَ الْقَوَاعِدِ فَخَــرَّ عَلَيْہِمُ السَّقْفُ مِنْ فَوْقِہِمْ وَاَتٰىہُمُ الْعَذَابُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَشْعُرُوْنَ۝۲۶
Qad makara allatheena min qablihim faata Allahu bunyanahum mina alqawaAAidi fakharra AAalayhimu alssaqfu min fawqihim waatahumu alAAathabu min haythu la yashAAuroona

English

Ahmed Ali

Those who have gone before them had also conspired; then God uprooted their structure from its foundation; the roof fell over them from above, and punishment came upon them from somewhere they did not suspect.

26

Tafseer

'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī

تفسير : (those before them plotted) against their prophets, just as the leaders of quraysh who were slain in the valley of badr plotted against muhammad (pbuh); the reference here is to the tyrant nimrod who built the tower, (so allah struck at the foundations of their building) allah extracted their tower from its foundation, (and then the roof fell down upon them) the tower fell upon him (from above them, and the doom came on them) through this destruction (whence they knew not);

Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī

تفسير : those before them had indeed plotted, [those] such as nimrod — he built a lofty tower that he might ascend through it to the heavens and wage war against its inhabitants; then god came at, he aimed at, their edifice from the foundations, from the base, unleashing against it winds and earthquake, which demolished it; and so the roof collapsed upon them from above them, that is, while they were beneath it, and the chastisement came upon them whence they were not aware, from a direction which would not have occurred to them: [alternatively] it is said that this [description] is a simile for [demonstrating] the thwarting of that which they had settled on in the way of plots against [god’s] messengers.