Then he clarified their lowliness by his saying, diverting the saying from the manifestation of greatness to something greater than it. He said: "besides Allah," meaning: the One encompassing all honor and all greatness, so that you may seek from them relief from what you are in or its alleviation. They said: meaning: flowing along with the innate disposition, which is the original disposition towards truth: "They have gone astray from us," so we do not see them as we have gone astray in this world from what benefits us.

And when they saw that their truthfulness necessitated their confession of polytheism, the wretchedness of deceit and the baseness of natures led them to lie. They flowed along with it and hastened to manifest harshness, saying, deceiving those who know the treachery of the eyes and what the breasts conceal, thinking that this would benefit them as it used to benefit them with the believers in the abode of this world: "Rather, we were not invoking." Meaning: that was not in our nature. And when their intention was to deny their invocation entirely and fundamentally in a moment and nothing beyond it, not the denial restricted by comprehensiveness, for it does not negate what is less than it, they affirmed the exception and said: "Before," meaning: before this resurrection, "anything," so that we may have associated partners with Him. So Allah does not decree for them except that which increases their harm and multiplies their regret and necessitates the curse of their own selves and the cursing of some of them some others, such that they remain in regret as they were in the world: "Look how they have lied against themselves, and what they used to invent has gone away from them" [Al-An'am: 24]. Thus, the verse is from the intertwining: mentioning polytheism first as evidence for their denial of it second, and the invocation second as evidence for its estimation first.

And when this was in the utmost admiration of their misguidance, it was as if it were said: Is there anyone among creation who goes astray like these? So the answer was given by His saying: "Thus," meaning: yes, like this misguidance far from the truth, "Allah misleads," meaning: the One encompassing in knowledge and ability, from the beneficial intent of argumentation and others, "the disbelievers," meaning: those who have concealed the sights of their insights so that it does not manifest therein, and then this became their habit.