The Criterion
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[25:40]
And they [who now deny Our messages] must surely have come across that town which was rained upon by a rain of evil: have they, then, never beheld it [with their mind’s eye]? But nay, they would not believe in resurrection!

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* v.40 : A reference to Sodom and its destruction by a rain of “stone-hard blows of chastisement pre-ordained” (see 11:82 and the corresponding note 114). The phrase “they have come across” may be understood in either of two ways: (a) in its literal sense of “chancing upon” or “passing by,” in which case it applies to the Prophet’s contemporaries and opponents, the pagan Meccans, whose customary caravan route to Syria passed close by the Dead Sea and the probable site of Sodom and Gomorrah; or (b) in the tropical sense of “becoming aware [of something]” through reading or hearsay – in which case it may be taken to refer to people of all times, and to the fact that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is part and parcel of mankind’s moral heritage.
* Lit., “they were wont not to look forward to [i.e., to expect or believe in] resurrection.”