And when He, glorified and exalted is He, mentioned that there must be a trial, and warned against disbelief, and gave glad tidings to those who are patient, He said, referring to ﴿And We certainly tested﴾ [Al-Ankabut: 3], indicating the greatness of the sanctity of the parent, where He placed it in the context of glorifying the Creator. He indicated that it is the greatest trial: ﴿And We enjoined﴾ concerning what we have of greatness ﴿upon man﴾ meaning: the one whom We aided in that by making him inclined towards others, especially those who have done good to him. So how about the most beloved of creation to him? And that is a trial for him ﴿with his parents﴾.

And when the command was: So We said to him: Do good to them ﴿with goodness﴾ meaning: an act of goodness in honoring them and being kind to them. He added to it His saying: ﴿And if they strive against you﴾ meaning: they exert their utmost effort in opposing you, striving with you like the one who struggles against someone who opposes him, exhausting their efforts in trying to make you ﴿associate partners with Me﴾. He left the expression of greatness to the text regarding the intended meaning and said: ﴿with Me﴾. He alerted him to seek proof in the fundamentals, indicating the danger of the situation due to the greatness of the objective. He said, employing justice, indicating by negating knowledge the absence of knowledge: ﴿What you have no knowledge of﴾ (p-396) at all, that he deserves partnership. For indeed, whoever worships what he does not know is deserving of worship is a disbeliever. ﴿So do not obey them﴾ for there is no obedience to a creature - even if he is great - in disobedience to the Creator. This necessitates that no one should fall into polytheism at all. There is no doubt at all that there is no suspicion that others, glorified and exalted is He, deserve divinity. So how about with evidence that necessitates knowledge? The objective of the context of the speech is to reveal the fairness and to alert to the advice, so that it may be more likely to be accepted. Then He justified that by saying: ﴿To Me is your return﴾ meaning: all of you: those who believed and those who associated partners on the Day of Resurrection. Then He caused from it His saying: ﴿So I will inform you﴾ meaning: I will inform you with a great, comprehensive report ﴿of what you used to﴾ meaning: by your desires ﴿do﴾ meaning: so stop at My limits, and leave what your desires beautify for you, and beware of My retribution for little of that and much of it. He expressed, glorified is He, by the cause which is the informing [because there is no duality in it] about the cause which is the recompense, using an unrestricted expression, and a profound threat in the form of indication, and He omitted mentioning it because it may be subject to pardon. And this verse was revealed concerning Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, may Allah be pleased with him. He embraced Islam and was dutiful to his mother. She swore: Do not eat or drink until you return from your religion or die and be blamed for it, and it will be said: the killer of his mother. So she remained for two days and nights, and he said: O my mother, if you had a hundred souls and each one departed one by one, I would not abandon my religion. So eat, and if you wish, do not eat! When she despaired of him, she ate and drank, and the origin of the story is in Al-Tirmidhi.