29. They practiced deceptions regarding the sign of the famine that had been inflicted on them (Ayats 11, 12). This verse alludes to the same, as if to say, “How dare you demand a sign again, whereas recently the sign of the famine has been shown to you? At that time you invoked the help of your deities but in vain, though you had set them up as intercessors with Allah and believed that offerings to their shrines would prove very effective in removing the famine. But you yourselves learned by the first hand experience that those so called gods possessed no power at all. Therefore when you were convinced that all power belongs to Allah alone, you turned to Him and began to invoke His help. This experience ought to have convinced you of the truth of the Message of Muhammad (peace be upon him) for this was the very fundamental thing which he was teaching. Instead of learning a lesson from this sign, you began to practice deceptions to explain it away, as soon as the famine was over and there had come the blessed rainfall. You invented many explanations (deceptions) concerning the causes of the famine and its subsequent end in order to escape from the doctrine of Tauhid and stick to your shirk. The verse is meant to declare that no sign would convince such people as those who had not benefited from the great sign of the famine. Therefore there was no use of showing any sign to them.
30. “Allah is more swift in plotting” means this: If you practice deceptions in order to explain away the sign of the famine so that you might find excuses to evade the implications of its acceptance in order to continue your rebellious attitudes. Allah is more swift in carrying out His plans to outdo your deceptive methods. He will leave you free to move in your wrong ways. He will even bestow upon you the worldly prosperity, which will so delude you that you will forget that you were being closely watched. And you will commit evil deeds with apparent immunity and enjoy yourselves to your heart’s content. But His angels will go on keeping a full and complete record of your deeds, which will be presented for your prosecution after your death.
31. The fact that even the most obdurate mushriks and the most hardened atheists who forget Allah when things go well with them, begin to invoke Allah’s help when they are pressed hard from all sides and despair of help from any other quarter, is a clear evidence that there is the All Powerful Allah Who is controlling each and every thing in the universe. Refer to (E.N. 29, Surah Al-Anaam).
31a. The parable is meant to warn those who are utterly neglectful of the life-after-death because of their apparent success in this worldly life. They have been likened to the owners of the land who were happy to presume that the crop was ripe and luxuriant and it was within their power to reap it and enjoy the produce of their harvest. They were so sure of this that they began to enjoy the fore-taste of the ripened crops, unaware of the decree of Allah which destroyed their crops and all their great expectations also. Likewise those who neglect to make preparations for the life-after-death will find to their sorrow that all they did to earn for the enjoyments of this world was, in relation to the next world, like the ripe crop that was destroyed all of a sudden.