Surah 23. Al-Muminun, Ayah 75

Sc., "as it inevitably befalls all human beings": an oblique allusion to the fact that human life is never free from distress.

 This refers to famine which affected the pagans of Mecca.

The reference is to a very severe famine felt in Makkah, which was attributed by the Unbelievers to the presence of the holy Prophet among them and his preaching against their gods. As this is a Makkan Sura, the famine referred to must be that described by Ibn Kathir as having occured in the 8th year of the Mission, say about four years before the Hijra. There was also a post-Hijra famine, which is referred to by Bukhari, but that was a later event.