Tafheem ul Quran

Surah 7 Al-A'raf, Ayat 100-100

اَوَلَمۡ يَهۡدِ لِلَّذِيۡنَ يَرِثُوۡنَ الۡاَرۡضَ مِنۡۢ بَعۡدِ اَهۡلِهَاۤ اَنۡ لَّوۡ نَشَآءُ اَصَبۡنٰهُمۡ بِذُنُوۡبِهِمۡ​ ۚ وَنَطۡبَعُ عَلٰى قُلُوۡبِهِمۡ فَهُمۡ لَا يَسۡمَعُوۡنَ‏ ﴿7:100﴾

(7:100) Has it not, then, become plain to those who have inherited the earth in the wake of the former generations that, had We so willed, We could have afflicted them for their sins,79 (they, however, are heedless to basic facts and so) We seal their hearts so that they hear nothing.80

Notes

79. Every nation which rises in place of one that falls, can perceive the misdeeds which brought about the preceding nation's fall. Were such a people to make use of their reason, to appreciate the false ideas and misdeeds which led to the undoing of those who once strutted abroad in vainglory, they would have realized that the Supreme Being Who had once punished them for their misdeeds and deprived them of power and glory had not ceased to exist. Nor has that Supreme Being been deprived of the power to inflict a punishment on the people of the present times, a power with which He smote the nations of the past. Nor has God become bereft of the capacity to dislodge the wicked nations of today in the manner He did in the past.

80. Those people who derive no lesson from history, who thoughtlessly pass over the ruins of the past, remaining engrossed in heedlessness, are deprived by God of the capacity to think correctly and to pay due attention to the counsel of well-wishers. Such is the God-made law of nature that if someone closes his eyes, not even a single ray of sun-light will reach his sight. Similarly, if someone is bent upon closing his ears none can make him hear even a word.