19أَفَمَن حَقَّ عَلَيهِ كَلِمَةُ العَذابِ أَفَأَنتَ تُنقِذُ مَن فِي النّارِMuhammad AsadOn the other hand,1 could one on whom [God's] sentence of suffering has been passed [be rescued by man]? Couldst thou, perchance, save one who is [already, as it were,] in the fire?2This, to my mind, is the meaning of the prefix fa in fa-man - stressing, by implication, the contrast between the glad tiding given to those who have attained to faith and the suffering which awaits those "who shall have lost their own selves" through sinning (verses 15-16).In view of the repeated Qur'anic statements that God always accepts a sinner's sincere repentance, provided it is proffered before the hour of death, His ineluctable "sentence of suffering" obviously relates to such as die without repentance, and hence find themselves, as it were, "already in the fire".