Tafsir for verse: 3:20
فَإِنۡ حَآجُّوكَ فَقُلۡ أَسۡلَمۡتُ وَجۡهِيَ لِلَّهِ وَمَنِ ٱتَّبَعَنِۗ وَقُل لِّلَّذِينَ أُوتُواْ ٱلۡكِتَٰبَ وَٱلۡأُمِّيِّـۧنَ ءَأَسۡلَمۡتُمۡۚ فَإِنۡ أَسۡلَمُواْ فَقَدِ ٱهۡتَدَواْۖ وَّإِن تَوَلَّوۡاْ فَإِنَّمَا عَلَيۡكَ ٱلۡبَلَٰغُۗ وَٱللَّهُ بَصِيرُۢ بِٱلۡعِبَادِ ٢٠ ﴿20
20Then, if they argue with you, say: “I have submitted myself to Allah, and (so did) those who have followed me.” And say to those who have been given the Book, and to the unlettered: “Do you submit?” If they submit, they will be on the right path. Yet, if they turn back, then you have only to convey the message. Allah is watchful over (all of) His servants.
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Commentary

And when that was completed, it was as if it was said: We have come to you with the clear matter in which they do not doubt. If they argue with you afterward about something that it contains and guides to, whether explicitly or implicitly, then know that their argument is out of stubbornness while being aware of the reality of the situation. So say: I turn away from them until I command you to fight, for it is one of the obligations - as has been established in the etiquette of discussion - to turn away from those who oppose in what is tangible. And say, acting upon the previous verse: "I have submitted my face to Allah," meaning I have sincerely devoted my intention and direction, and I have submitted completely to Allah, the Greatest King, to whom belongs all command, and there is none comparable to Him.

Al-Harali said: And when He, the Exalted, included the testimony of the angels and those of knowledge in His testimony, He instructed His Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, to include those who followed him in their submission to Allah, so that their Islam would be through the Islam of their Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, and not through their own Islam, so that the followers of the Ummah would be linked to the Imams. This is the state of the saved group, preferred over the two sects and the seventy-one that the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said: "And what I am upon" in what has been given to him of certainty, and his companions in what has been given to them of submission and their being free from returning to themselves in any matter, as they used to say at every emergence of knowledge or matter: Allah and His Messenger know best. Whoever enters with his opinion into a matter has diminished his share of following according to his obstinacy. It has ended. So He, the Exalted, said, connecting to the pronoun that is attached for the sake of the action: "And whoever" meaning, and he has submitted who has followed their faces to Him, glorified and exalted is He.

And when the one who completes himself must strive to complete others, He informed him of that in His saying: "And say" as a threat, humiliation, reproach, and reprimand to those who were given the Book, meaning generally to those Christians who argue with you and also to the Jews, and to the unlettered who have no Book, indicating by the question their stubbornness, reproaching them: "Have you submitted?" If they submit, then they have certainly guided themselves in this world and the Hereafter. And in the form of "they have submitted" there is an indication that the souls are inclined to misguidance and deviate from the path of perfection. And if they turn away, meaning from Islam, they are obstinate, so let not their matter concern you. For upon you is the conveying of the message, and upon them is the burden of their turning away. In the structure of the form "tafa'ala" there is an indication that the paths of guidance after the clarification take their virtues with the depths of hearts, and that the one who turns away from it after that is overpowering his apparent intellect and the uprightness of his original nature with the filth of his soul and the deviation of his disposition.

And when the estimation is: Allah will grant success for accepting the message from you to whom He knows therein is good, and will turn away from it whom He knows therein is evil, He followed it with His saying: "And Allah," meaning the One who encompasses all things in power and knowledge, "is All-Seeing of the servants," meaning He grants success to whom He created for good among them and forsakes others. No one other than Him can do that, and no one other than Him can act otherwise.

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