أَنفَقَ

68:20.

68:32.

Important Words:

یقلب کفیه (began to wring his hands). یقلب is formed from قلب (qallaba) which is derived from قلب (qalaba). قلبه means, he turned it over or upside down. فاصبح یقلب کفیه means, And he began to turn his hands upside-down or to do so repeatedly in grief or regret; or he became in a state or condition of repenting or grieving, for تقلیب الکفین is the action of a man who is repenting or grieving, and therefore metonymically denotes repentance or grief (Lane). See also 2:145 & 9:48.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that all the efforts and endeavours of Christian peoples to add to their material wealth and power will fail to produce any wholesome results. These efforts will end in smoke and their power and prestige will speedily decline. In the hour of their misery and desolation the western Christian nations will lament that they had expended so much labour and money on the illusory things of this life.

The words, it had all fallen down on its trellises, show that these people will be given to erecting lofty and imposing buildings and that the calamities which will befall them in quick succession will raze their prosperous and rich cities to the ground and their eleventh-hour repentance will avail them nothing. The verse incidentally shows that the word 'garden' used in these verses is not used literally because gardens do not fall down upon their trellises.

4:96; 9:20.

Commentary:

Man will have to leave behind in this world all his material possessions which in truth belong to God.

الفتح (the Victory) may refer to the Fall of Mecca, soon after which the whole of Arabia submitted to the Holy Prophet, or it may refer to the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah which laid the foundation of the subsequent rapid spread of Islam and of the vast and very quick expansion of the political power of Muslims.