Commentary
And when it was known that they say: We do not believe that this Book is from Allah, let alone that we should suffice with it, He said: ﴿Say﴾, meaning in response to what they may say of this kind: ﴿Sufficient is Allah﴾, meaning: the One who possesses all greatness and all perfections, who has testified for me with the message in His Book, which proves that it is His words and the incapacity of creation to oppose it.
And when the focus in this Surah is on mentioning people and detailing their conditions, He began with His saying: ﴿Between me and you﴾ before His saying: ﴿A witness﴾, unlike in Al-Ra'd and Al-An'am. Then He described the witness or justified his sufficiency with His saying: ﴿He knows what is in the heavens﴾, meaning: all of it. And when there was nothing in the earth other than this which they see, He mentioned in the coming of the revelation and the Qur'an from it, and He specified by saying: ﴿And the earth﴾, meaning: nothing is hidden from Him of that, for He is All-Knowing of what they attribute to me of falsehood and of what I attribute to Him in this Qur'an, which has testified for me of your incapacity regarding it, so it is a witness for me. And Allah, in reality, is the witness for me, for what is in it of praise for me and the testimony for me of truth, because it has been established by the incapacity regarding it that it is His words, and it will be confirmed by reason that the falsehood of us will be nullified.
And when the implication is: And you know that He has testified for me that I am upon the truth, and that everything that contradicts what I have brought is falsehood, so those who have believed in the truth and disbelieved in falsehood, they are the successful ones. He added to this His saying: ﴿And those who have believed in falsehood﴾, meaning: that which it is not permissible to believe in from every deity other than Allah ﴿and disbelieved in Allah﴾, who must be believed in and thanked, for He has all perfection and everything other than Him is perishing, having nothing of its own except non-existence. ﴿Those﴾ are the distant, the hated ones ﴿they are﴾ specifically ﴿the losers﴾, meaning: those deeply entrenched in loss, for they have lost themselves forever.
Explore Other Scholars on This Verse
Compare different scholarly perspectives on Surah Al-'Ankabut verse 52