Parables in the Qur'an and how the Disbelievers do not learn from them

وَلَقَدْ ضَرَبْنَا لِلنَّاسِ فِى هَـذَا الْقُرْءَانِ مِن كُلِّ مَثَلٍ

(And indeed We have set forth for mankind, in this Qur'an every kind of parable.) means, `We have explained the truth to them and have made it clear to them, and have set forth for them parables so that they may understand the truth and follow it.'

After this, the falsehood and ignorance of the deniers of the Dooms Day is mentioned وَيَوْمَ تَقُومُ السَّاعَةُ يُقْسِمُ الْمُجْرِ‌مُونَ مَا لَبِثُوا غَيْرَ‌ سَاعَةٍ that is, ‘When the Dooms Day will come, these deniers of the Dooms Day will start swearing by losing senses after looking at the horrid scenes, that their stay was not more than one hour'. It is probable that the stay referred to here is the stay in this world, because they spent the time in this world in comfort and ease. And when they will encounter troubles in the Hereafter, they, by way of a natural habit of man to regard the comfortable period of his life very short, will swear that they lived in the world hardly for one hour.

The other probability is that this 'stay' is their stay in graves and barzakh. In that case, the meaning would be that they had thought that their stay in graves, that is barzakh, would be very long and the Dooms Day would come after a long period, but it would seem to them that they stayed in barzakh for a very short time, and the Day of Judgment dawned too early. The reason for this feeling is that they will not find any comfort for themselves in the Hereafter, rather it will bring nothing but problems for them. And it is human nature that when he is taken over by problems, he considers the time previously spent in comfort being very short-lived. Although the barzakh is also a place of punishment for the infidels, yet it is much lighter as compared to what they will come across in Qiyamah. Hence they will regard the period of barzakh as very short and swear that their stay in it was brief.