In order not to shut the door of repentance to deviated...

In order not to shut the door of repentance to deviated polytheists and let them return in any stage they are, at the end of the verse the Qur’a-n says: “… verily He is the Forbearing, the Forgiving.” Because of His forbearance, Allah does not hasten in punishing them, and because of His forgiveness, He accepts their repentance, with its conditions, in any case and stage it is.

Thus, the ending part of the verse refers to the situation of polytheists and that His Mercy encompasses them at the time of repentance and returning.

Some commentators have taken these two attributes in relation to maintenance of the heavens and the earth, because their destruction is an affliction and a punishment, and Allah, because of His Forbearance and Forgiveness, does not let people get this punishment and affliction, though the sayings and deeds of many of them require that this chastisement should be sent down, as Sura Maryam, No.

19, verses 88 to 90 say: “And they say: ‘The Beneficent (Allah) has taken (unto Himself) a son’.” “Indeed you have put forth something hideous!” “At it the skies are about to burst, and the earth to split asunder, and the mountains to fall down crashing.” During the length of the history of human beings this event has repeatedly happened that some of the astronomers have foreseen that, in its way, a particular comet, or other than it, may pass by the earth and probably it crashes this globe.

These predictions have worried the thoughts of all people in the world. In these circumstances this feeling appears for everybody that in this problem nobody can do anything, because if, for example, so and so celestial globe comes towards the earth and, under their gravity they crash each other, there will remain no trace from the thousand-year-old civilization of mankind, and even from other living creatures on the earth; and no power, except the Power of Allah, can prevent this event.

In these cases everyone feels absolute need unto absolute Self-Sufficient Allah; but when those probable dangers are removed, forgetfulness encompasses human beings. Not only the crash of the celestial spheres and planets cause calamity, but also a slight deviation of a planet, like earth, from its orb may bring forth a calamity.