(… سَأَلَ سَائِلٌ) (A supplicant asked …): One of the disbelievers in Mecca named An-Nadar ibn al-Harith asked that a punishment befall him and his people when the Prophet (saws) warned him against the punishment of Allah (swt):

 إِذْ قَالُوا اللَّهُمَّ إِن كَانَ هَٰذَا هُوَ الْحَقَّ مِنْ عِندِكَ فَأَمْطِرْ عَلَيْنَا حِجَارَةً مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ أَوِ ائْتِنَا بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ

(nd [remember] when they said, “O Allah, if this should be the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from the sky or bring us a painful punishment.”) (Al-Ahqaf: 32)

hey were completely incapable, so that they asked for such thing. This is the utmost level of blindness and disbelief that to ask for death instead of guidance. This is the supplication of brainless, for had they had any intellect, they would have said: “O’ Lord, if this is the truth from you, then guide us to it”. But, due to their extreme hatred and misguidance, they wished the punishment instead of believing in the truth. This reflects their minds’ futility because this supplication would have brought bad sequences to them. Among those who said this supplication were: Al-‘As ibn Wa-il As-Sahmi, Al-Walid ibn Al-Mughira, Al-Aswad ibn ‘Abd Al-Mut-taleb and others. They reached the highest level of confusion after they accused the Prophet (saws) of being a soothsayer and a sorcerer. Then they accused him of being mad and they claimed that the Holy Quran was a kind of poetry. At last, they asked for the punishment, which the Prophet (saws) warned them against, to befall over them.