“(Let them bear in mind) that on that Day when He will call out to them, saying: ‘Where are My associates, those whom you imagined to be so?’ And from each people shall We draw a witness, and shall say to them: ‘Do produce your evidence now.’ Then they shall know that the Truth is with Allah alone, and the lies which they had invented will forsake them.” (Al Qur’ān – 28:74-75)
These ayahs present a scene of the Divine Court when Allah, the Lord and Master of the universe, will reawaken each and every person, from Adam to the last person on earth, to present his/her account of life. One prerequisite of a court is that a respondent must be given an opportunity to present his stand of the case as well as witness(es) in support thereof. Though Allah is All-Knowing, He will not deprive man of this right in the Day of Judgement.
Such witnesses would either be the Prophet who had warned that nation, or one of the rightly-directed followers of the Prophets, who had communicated the Truth to others, or any other means through which the Truth had reached that nation.
They were asked to come up with a strong argument in their defence. They were required to prove that shirk, denial of the After-life and of Prophethood, to which they had clung adamantly, were right and that they had chosen their path on solid grounds. Or, they should at least prove that God had made no arrangement to warn them nor to communicate the right Message to them.