The first verse is traditionally thought to refer to a miracle performed by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Meccan phase of his career, in which he showed the Moon split in two in response to a challenge from his opponents.

As Carl Ernst writes in How to Read the Qur'an, surahs from the middle to late Meccan period follow a “tripartite division”, in which one observes a “ring structure, beginning and ending with parallel sections” of divine praise, heavy threats for the unbelievers, and staunch affirmations of the revelation.

This first section is marked by its apocryphal tone and its introduction to the themes of disbelief and failure to heed warnings, which echo through the remainder of the surah.

The middle section of this Qur'anic surah, which Ernst marks from verse 9 to 42, relates to prior Hebrew and Arab oral traditions to remind the audience of previous instances where the word of God was not heeded and stern consequences resulted.

The first of the five examples is the story of Noah, whose rejection by his own people is relatable to the situation Muhammad found himself in early in his prophetic career.

There are four more examples of rejected prophets in the middle section of surah 54, wherein the stories of ‘Ad, Thamud, Lot, and Pharaoh are mentioned to reiterate the lesson that those who fail to heed Allah's warnings through His messengers will be punished.

(The stories of ‘Ad and Thamud come from Arab folklore and the Qur'an briefly describes the wrath that both of these peoples incurred because of their disbelief.)

Take note that the five Hebrew/Arab stories are told in a manner that assumes the audience has a working knowledge of the myth before its telling in the Qur'an.

For example, the story of Pharaoh only takes up two verses in which there is only space to mention that a warning came to his people, they rejected the signs, and Allah “overcame them with the seizing of the Mighty, the Powerful”.

Thus, the verse could mean that the surahs are easily remembered because of their poetic and song-like form in their spoken versions: their rhyming schemes, cadences, and robust structure.

The purpose of the middle section of this Surah, then, is to draw attention to examples from the past of unbelievers and their punishments, challenging the people of Muhammad's time to finally heed and recognize Allah's Prophet.

As the surah ends, however, God asserts his ability to inflict punishment upon the disbelievers: “when We ordain something it happens at once, in the blink of an eye; We have destroyed the likes of you in the past.

[20] With this final rhetorical question, God instead establishes the breadth of His power, as He highlights the utter immediacy with which He could rid the earth of the unbelievers.