Surah 46. Al-Ahqaf, Ayah 26

I.e., intellect and feeling, both of which are comprised in the noun fu'ad.

This relates in the first instance to the pagan contemporaries of the Prophet, but applies to later generations as well. - The tribe of 'Ad were the unchallenged lords in the vast region in which they lived (cf. 89:8 - "the like of whom has never been reared in all the land"). Moreover, the social conditions of their time were so simple and so free of the many uncertainties and dangers which beset people of higher civilizations that they could be regarded as more "securely established" on earth than people of later, more complex times.

Lit.. "enfolded".

 The people of Hûd.

The 'Ad and their successors the Thamud were more richly endowed with the faculties of the arts, sciences, and culture than ever were the Quraish before Islam. "Hearing and seeing" refer to the experimental faculties; the word "heart" in Arabic includes intellect, or the rational faculties, as well as the instruments of feeling and emotion, the aesthetic faculties. The Second 'Ad, or Thamud, have left interesting traces of their architecture in the country round the Hijr: see n. 1043 to vii. 73, and notes 2002- 2003 to xv. 80-82.

The highest talents and faculties of this world are useless in the next world if we reject the laws of Allah and thus become outlaws in the Hereafter.

See n. 4770 to xlv. 33. They used to mock at Allah's Signs, but those were the very things which hemmed them in, and showed that they had more power and effectiveness than anything else.