Surah 16. An-Nahl, Ayah 112

This parable is meant to show that deliberate ingratitude for the manifold blessings which God bestows upon man - in other words, a deliberate refusal to submit to His guidance - is bound, in the long run and in the context of aggregate social life, to have disastrous consequences not only in the hereafter but in this world as well, inasmuch as no society may expect to live in security and ease unless it conforms to the ethical and social standards inherent in the concept of man's "bond with God" (as explained in surah {2}, note [19]).

Lit., "the garment" (libas) - idiomatically used in classical Arabic to describe the utmost degree of misfortune which "envelops man like a garment" (Taj al-'Arus, with specific reference to the above verse).

There is a double metaphor: (1) the tasting of hunger and terror after the abundant supplies and the full security which it had enjoyed; and (2) the complete enfolding of the City as with a garment, by these two scourges, hunger and a state of subjective alarm. If the reference is to Makkah shortly before its fall to the Muslims, the "hunger" was the seven years' severe famine which afflicted it, and the alarm was the constant fear in the minds of the Pagans that their day was done. Peace and prosperity were restored after the re-entry of the Prophet.

The reference may be to any of the cities or populations in ancient or modern times, which were favoured with security and other blessings from Allah, but which rebelled from Allah's Law and tasted the inevitable penalty, even in the midst of their iniquities. Some Commentators see here a reference to the city of Makkah under Pagan control. See next note.