And when He, glorified and exalted is He, indicated by their persistence in mocking this warning that they are not separating from the ways of the disbelievers, He mentioned their explicit statement regarding that and their state at certain times that apply to the previous verse in His saying: ﴿And those who disbelieved said﴾ where He expressed it with the relative and its connection in the place of the pronoun, cutting off the hopes from their supplication: ﴿We will never believe﴾ meaning we will never affirm it at all. And they explicitly stated what was revealed to him ﷺ by indicating, saying: ﴿With this Qur'an﴾ meaning even though it encompasses all the wisdoms and objectives contained in the remaining books ﴿nor with that which is before it﴾ meaning before it from the books: the Torah and the Gospel and others. Rather, we are content with what our fathers have taught us. This is because some of the people of the Book informed them that the description of this Prophet is in their books, which angered them, so they said: ﴿And if﴾ meaning while you ﴿see﴾ meaning there exists from you a vision of their state ﴿when﴾ they - thus was the original - but He showed the description generally and made the ruling dependent on it, saying: ﴿the wrongdoers﴾ meaning those who place things in other than their proper places, affirming their fathers for a slight good deed that is clouded without evidence, and they do not affirm their Lord who has no blessing with them nor with their fathers except from Him. And He has established for them the proofs of reason with what He has struck for them of examples in the horizons and in themselves, and the transmission with this Qur'an (p-509) indicated to its truth after the manifestation of the tangible miracles [due to their inability to produce it, so it is as if they heard it from Allah, the True Bestower ﴿stopped﴾ meaning after the resurrection by what will stop them from His power by the hands of His soldiers or otherwise] with an easier matter than Him, glorified and exalted is He, overpowering them and against their will: ﴿with their Lord﴾ meaning the One who has done good to them, and His goodness has lasted, yet they disbelieved every time He did good to them. ﴿Some of them will return﴾ meaning in the face of dispute out of enmity. [And] the cause of it was their mutual support in this world by some of them obeying others in disobedience to Allah. Al-Qushayri said: And whoever commits sins, Allah brings upon him everyone who is more obedient to him, but they do not know that. And if they knew, they would have taken heed, and if they had taken heed, they would have repented and agreed, but let Allah decree a matter that was destined to happen. ﴿To some of the saying﴾ meaning with mutual reproach and confrontation and disputation, you would have seen a terrifying, monstrous, dreadful, alarming matter that pleases you in its appearance and impresses you with their traces and news, from their humiliation and their dialogue and their cowardice where nothing from that benefits them.

And when this was general, he explained it by saying in a manner of resumption: ﴿Those who were oppressed will say﴾ meaning their oppression occurred from those who are above them in this world, and they are the followers in that case, in a manner of blame and reproach ﴿to those who were arrogant﴾ meaning they created arrogance and sought it through what they found of its causes which led to their oppression (p-510) for the earlier ones, and they are the heads who are followed: ﴿If it were not for you﴾ meaning from what was found of your following us upon disbelief and other matters of yours ﴿we would have been believers﴾ meaning deeply rooted in faith because there was no arrogance within ourselves that would lead us to stubbornness against the messengers.