Ghāfir
This chapter of the Qur’an discusses the arrogance of the disbelievers and their recourse to disputations based on falsehood in order to invalidate the truth to which they were being called. This is the reason why the chapter returns to the subject of the disputation time and again:
No one disputes the signs of Allah except the faithless. So do not be misled by their bustle in the towns (40:3).
Those who dispute the signs of Allah without any authority that may have come to them are greatly outrageous (40:35).
Have you not regarded those who dispute the signs of Allah, where they are being led away? (40:69).
This chapter responds to their arrogant disputation by recounting the fate that God caused to befall the nations who denied His signs before them and the humiliating punishment that He has prepared for them by mentioning some of what will happen to them in the Hereafter.
At the same time, it refutes their false claims by presenting arguments for God’s unity in lordship and divinity. It also enjoins the Prophet to be steadfast while promising divine assistance to him and the faithful, and bids him proclaim to the disbelievers that he has submitted to his Lord and that he will never forsake His worship, so that they despair of overcoming him.
It is clear that the chapter is Meccan in its entirety, both from the connectedness of its verses and the nature of its content, and claims that some of it was revealed in Medina have no merit, as we shall discuss below.
This is the ʿAllāmah's introduction to the sūrah, from the opening of the commentary.