A piercing rhetorical question: "man aẓlam" — who could be more unjust? Maududi explains that two specific crimes are named, and both are described as the absolute summit of injustice: (1) iftarā 'alā Allāh kadhiban — fabricating lies against Allah, e.g., inventing gods, attributing daughters to Him, claiming He has forbidden or permitted what He has not; (2) kadhdhaba bi-āyātih — giving the lie to His clear signs after they have come. These are not minor sins; they are structural sins against the very Creator. The verse closes with a divine guarantee: "such wrongdoers shall never succeed." Worldly appearances of their success are temporary; their final outcome is sealed.

A scene from the Day of Gathering. Allah Himself directly questions the polytheists: "Where are your partners (shurakā') whom you used to claim (taz'umūn)?" Maududi highlights the precision of taz'umūn — "claim, allege, suppose" — a verb that carries connotations of empty assertion without basis. On that Day, every false attribution is laid bare, every imagined intercessor is summoned for inspection, and every absent god is exposed. The question is not asked to obtain information; it is asked to shame the rebel before all of creation.

A staggering moment. Backed into the corner of judgment, with their false partners now visibly absent and useless, the polytheists resort to the only tool left — a lie. They swear by Allah, by their Lord, that they were never polytheists. Maududi notes the layered tragedy: they continue lying even at the Standing, even after death, even when the truth is manifest to all. The instinct to deny one's sin runs so deep that it persists into the afterlife. The word fitnatuhum ("their excuse, their tribulation, their mischief") is debated by mufassirūn — Maududi follows the reading that they realize at that moment that no other excuse will work, so they fall back on perjury.

Allah invites the listener to "behold" the spectacle. Maududi explains the depth of "kadhabū 'alā anfusihim" — "they lied against themselves." It is not simply that they lied to someone else; the lie circles back on their own souls, because the same hands and feet and skins will testify against them (cf. 41:20–22). And "ḍalla 'anhum mā kānū yaftarūn" — "what they invented has abandoned them." Every fabricated deity, every imagined intercessor, every concocted justification — all of it scatters, leaves, vanishes at the moment of judgment. The investment of a lifetime in false realities yields nothing on the Day.

A diagnosis of the spiritual condition of the leaders of the Quraysh. Some of them — Abu Sufyan, Abu Jahl, an-Naḍr ibn al-Ḥārith and others — would actually listen to the Prophet ﷺ recite the Qur'an, sometimes secretly at night. But Allah declares: their persistent rejection has now closed the channel. Akinnah ("coverings") on the hearts so they don't comprehend, and waqr ("heaviness, deafness") in the ears so they don't hear. Maududi explains the principle: the heart is not a passive receiver — when it actively refuses, Allah seals it as a just consequence of its own choice. "Even if they saw every sign, they would not believe." They reduce the Qur'an to "asāṭīr al-awwalīn" ("the tales of the ancients") — a slogan an-Naḍr ibn al-Ḥārith reportedly used. The verse warns: dispute (jadal) with closed hearts is the final mark of unbelief.