Surah 39. Az-Zumar, Ayah 19

This, to my mind, is the meaning of the prefix fa in fa-man - stressing, by implication, the contrast between the glad tiding given to those who have attained to faith and the suffering which awaits those "who shall have lost their own selves" through sinning (verses {15-16}).

In view of the repeated Qur'anic statements that God always accepts a sinner's sincere repentance, provided it is proffered before the hour of death, His ineluctable "sentence of suffering" obviously relates to such as die without repentance, and hence find themselves, as it were, "already in the fire".

If a man is already steeped in sin and has rejected Allah's Grace, how can we expect Revelation to work in his soul?