And when that was a place of wonder from the lack of hastening the misguidance with punishment and His delaying them until He inflicted upon them in the Battle of Badr, especially with His saying: ﴿If you seek victory, then indeed, victory has come to you﴾ [Al-Anfal: 19], He clarified the secret in that even if they exaggerated in their hastening (p-270). He said: ﴿And when they said﴾, meaning: the intention of challenging by deceiving the people that they are certain that it is false; otherwise, they would not have called upon this supplication: ﴿O Allah﴾, meaning: O You who has the perfection of sovereignty and the universality of kingship, ﴿If this﴾, meaning: the matter that Muhammad has brought to us, ﴿is﴾, meaning: not what we are upon, ﴿the truth﴾ while it is revealed ﴿from You﴾. Al-Zajjaj said: No one knows who recited: 'the truth' in the nominative case. Abu Hayyan benefited from that.

﴿So rain down upon us stones﴾, and perhaps its specification with His saying: ﴿from the sky﴾, although rain can only be from it, is to remove the illusion of those who think that rain is a metaphor for absolute stoning and that it was mentioned to indicate that the stones that are thrown are in abundance like rain. ﴿Or bring us a painful punishment﴾, meaning: other than stones. And perhaps their intention with their saying that is the indication that the coming of revelation to you from the sky is miraculous just as the coming of stones from it is likewise. So if you are truthful in bringing the revelation to you from it, then bring us stones from it just as the stones came from it to the companions of the elephant, as a protection from Allah for His House, which the army intended to violate its sanctity and as a glorification for it. Abu Hayyan pointed to that, and this verse and the one before it are about Al-Nadr ibn Al-Harith, whom Al-Miqdad captured on the day of Badr, and the Prophet ﷺ commanded to kill him. Al-Miqdad said: 'He is my captive, O Messenger of Allah!' The Prophet ﷺ said: 'He used to say in the Book of Allah what he says.' Al-Miqdad, may Allah be pleased with him, returned to his words, and the Prophet ﷺ said: 'O Allah, enrich Al-Miqdad from Your bounty.' He said: 'That is what I intended, O Messenger of Allah!' So the Prophet ﷺ killed him, and his sister, the slain, recited verses from them:

'What harm would it have done you if you had shown favor, and perhaps a man shows favor while he is angry and furious.'

The Prophet ﷺ said: 'If this poetry had reached me before his killing, I would have shown favor to him.' And from Muawiyah, may Allah be pleased with him, he said to a man from Saba: 'How ignorant are your people when they appointed a woman over them!' He said: 'More ignorant than my people are your people.' They said: ﴿If this is the truth from You﴾, and they did not say: 'So guide us with it.' And the secret that He clarified in this verse in delaying them is that what prevented Him from hastening in responding to their supplication as He did in the incident of Badr is the reverence of His مقام ﷺ among them.