al-Anʿām 6:34-37

"Messengers before you were called liars too, and they bore with patience what they were called… If their turning away weighs upon you, then, if you are able, seek out a tunnel into the earth or a ladder into the sky and bring them a sign!"

This is one of the most striking consolations in the sūra, and it must be treated honestly.

Nafaq (an underground tunnel) and sullam (a ladder): two extreme directions — downward and upward.

I record this as my own reading: the sentence is not a command but a consolation made by showing an impossibility. And the consolation begins by accepting that the turning away weighs heavily (wa in kāna kabura ʿalayka iʿrāḍuhum). That is, the feeling is not treated as nothing.

And the same line was treated at al-Kahf 18/6, al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/3, Fāṭir 35/8 and al-Anʿām 6/33. What al-Anʿām adds: the limit being given with a depiction of impossibility.

إِنَّمَا يَسْتَجِيبُ ٱلَّذِينَ يَسْمَعُونَ (36) — "only those who hear respond." And at Fuṣṣilat 41/4 (fa-hum lā yasmaʿūn) it was recorded that not hearing is the consequence of turning away.