And they exclaimed, “If only this Quran was revealed to a great man from ˹one of˺ the two cities!”43:31
The two towns being referred to in the above verse are Makkah and Ta'if. The polytheists said, "The Quran should have been revealed to a great and important man in Makkah or in Ta'if." The scholars of Tafsir clarified that they were referring to Al-Walid ibn Al-Mughirah in Makkah, and to 'Urwah ibn Mas'ud Ath-Thaqafi in Ta'if. The Quraish regarded it as unlikely that the Quran was revealed to Muhammad ﷺ, who had once been poor. They suggested that the Quran should instead be revealed to one of their distinguished leaders, mistakenly believing that honor comes through wealth and status. They failed to realize that true honor is bestowed by Allah's judgment:
Whenever a sign comes to them, they say, “We will never believe until we receive what Allah’s messengers received.” Allah knows best where to place His message. The wicked will soon be overwhelmed by humiliation from Allah and a severe punishment for their evil plots.
They considered Al-Walid ibn Al-Mughirah ibn Abdullah bin Amr bin Makhzum (who was born 95 years before Hijrah in 530 of the Christian calendar and died in 622 during the first year of Hijrah) to be more worthy than the Prophet ﷺ. They used to call him Al-'Idl, or 'the equivalent,' because with his wealth and status, they considered him to be equivalent to all of the people of Quraish combined. If all of them spent money to prepare the cover of the Ka'bah, he alone, with no financial support from anyone else, would cover it. The other man, 'Urwah ibn Mas'ud ibn Muattib Ath-Thaqafi, was the leader of his people in Ta'if. He accepted Islam, and when he invited his people to do the same, they disobeyed him, and eventually, one of them killed him with an arrow in the year 9AH (630 of the Christian calendar)."
