'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful' His saying, exalted and glorious is He: ﴿And when Our verses are recited to them, they say, 'We have heard. If we wished, we could say the like of this. This is nothing but legends of the former peoples.'﴾ ﴿And when they said, 'O Allah, if this is the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from the heaven or bring us a painful punishment.'﴾ The pronoun in 'to them' refers back to the disbelievers. The verses here refer specifically to the verses of the Qur'an, as indicated by His saying: ﴿are recited﴾. And ﴿We have heard﴾ means: We have heard this recitation; if we wished, we could say something like it. And we have heard something similar, as it has been narrated that an-Nadr heard the stories of the people of al-Hirah from the worshippers. So if we wished, we could say something like it from the tales and the prophets. For these are merely legends of those who have passed, meaning their written and recorded stories. 'Legends' is the plural of 'legend', and it is possible that it is the plural of 'asṭār', and not the plural of 'aṣṭūr' as al-Ṭabarī said, because it comes as 'asāṭīr' without a 'yā'. This is the rule of the category, and there has been an exception from it like 'ṣayraf', as they said in its plural: 'ṣayarif'. And what has been transmitted by the narrations from Ibn Jurayj, al-Suddī, and Ibn Jubayr is that the one who said this statement is an-Nadr ibn al-Harith. This is because he was frequently traveling to Persia and al-Hirah, and he had heard the stories of the monks and the gospels, and he heard the news of Rustam and Isfandyar. So when he heard the Qur'an and saw in it the news of the prophets and the nations, he said: 'If I wished, I could say something like this.' And an-Nadr was one of the leaders of Quraysh who opposed the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him. And verses were revealed about him in the Book of Allah. The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, killed him in cold blood at the Badr battle in a place called al-Uthayl, and he was captured by al-Miqdād. When the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, ordered that his neck be struck, al-Miqdād said: 'My prisoner, O Messenger of Allah.' The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'He used to say about the Book of Allah what you have known.' Then al-Miqdād repeated his statement until the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'O Allah, enrich al-Miqdād from Your bounty.' Al-Miqdād said: 'This is what I wanted.' So he struck an-Nadr's neck.' Al-Ṭabarī narrated from Sa'īd ibn Jubayr that 'the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, killed on the day of Badr in cold blood three men: al-Muṭ'im ibn 'Adiyy, an-Nadr ibn al-Harith, and 'Uqbah ibn Abī Mu'ayṭ.' The judge Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: 'And this is a great error in the report of al-Muṭ'im, for he had died before the day of Badr. And on this, the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'If al-Muṭ'im were alive and spoke to me about these filthy ones, I would have released them to him,' meaning the captives of Badr. And His saying, exalted and glorious is He: ﴿And when they said, 'O Allah, if this is the truth from You'﴾, it has been narrated from Mujahid, Ibn Jubayr, 'Atā, and al-Suddī that the speaker of this statement is an-Nadr ibn al-Harith, who has been mentioned earlier, and this verse was revealed about him.' The judge Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And it was arranged that Al-Nadr ibn Al-Harith would say a statement and attribute it to all of them, because Al-Nadr was among them known for nobility and understanding, and he was inclined to his saying. So when he said a saying, many of them would say it and follow him in it, as people always do with their scholars and jurists. The one referred to by 'this' is the Qur'an and the law of Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him. What drove them to this statement was envy, as they excluded the possibility that Allah would honor Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, with this honor. Their insights became blind to guidance, and they insisted that this was not the truth, so they said this statement, just as a person might say about a matter that has been realized, claiming that it was not: 'If such and such were the case, then Allah has done this to me and made that.' Ibn Fawrak narrated that this statement emerged from obstinacy, despite their knowledge that it was true. Likewise, some of the people of Yemen compelled Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan with the famous story in the chapter of answers, and Al-Tabari narrated it from Muhammad ibn Qais and Yazid ibn Ruman.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And this is far from interpretation, and no sane person would say this out of obstinacy. In Arabic, it is permissible to raise 'the truth' as it is the news of 'he is,' and the sentence is the news of 'was.' Al-Zajjaj said: I do not know anyone who has read this permissible way, and the reading of the people is only by the accusative of 'the truth' as it should be the news of 'was' and 'he is' is a separation. So at that time, it is a noun and it has the meaning of informing that what follows it is news not a description. 'So send down' is only used in undesirable matters, and 'rain' in mercy, thus said Abu Ubaida.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And this is contradicted by His saying, glorified and exalted is He: 'This is a cloud bringing us rain' [Al-Ahqaf: 24], because they thought it was a cloud of mercy, and their saying: 'from the sky' is an exaggeration and an excess.

And these two types that they proposed are the previous ones in the nations. May Allah protect us and pardon us and not lead us astray by His grace and blessing.