Tafsir of Al-Haqqah 69:11-12

{We carried you}: We carried your ancestors.

{In the sailing vessel}: In the ship. Because they were the descendants of those who were carried and saved, carrying their ancestors was a favor to them. It is as if they themselves were the ones carried, because their salvation was the cause of their birth.

{That We might make it}: The pronoun refers to the act: the salvation of the believers and the drowning of the disbelievers.

{A reminder}: An admonition and a lesson.

{And an attentive ear}: An ear whose nature is to comprehend and preserve what it hears, not letting it go to waste by failing to act upon it. Everything you preserve within yourself, you have "comprehended" (wa‘aytahu); and what you preserve outside yourself, you have "stored" (aw‘aytahu), as when you say: "I stored the thing in the container."

It is narrated from the Prophet (ﷺ) that when this verse was revealed, he said to ‘Alī (may Allah be pleased with him): "I asked Allah to make it your ear, O ‘Alī." ‘Alī (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "I never forgot anything thereafter, nor was it for me to forget."

If you ask: Why was it said "an attentive ear" (udhunun wā‘iyah) in the singular and indefinite form?

I say: To signal that those who truly comprehend are few; to rebuke people for the scarcity of those among them who comprehend; and to indicate that if a single ear comprehends and understands from Allah, it is the "greatest multitude" (al-sawād al-a‘ẓam) in the sight of Allah, and He cares nothing for all others, even if they were to fill everything between the horizons.

It is read: {wa-ta‘īhā} with a quiescent ‘ayn for lightness, similar to kabid (liver).

{Then, when the Trumpet is blown with a single blast, and the earth and the mountains are lifted and crushed with a single crushing, then on that Day the Event will occur, and the heaven will split asunder, for on that Day it is frail. And the angels will be on its edges, and eight will bear the Throne of your Lord above them that Day. That Day you will be brought forth; not hidden of you will be any secret.}