And when the decree was: those who turned away from it and died in its guardianship, He forgives their sins, meaning that He removes them in essence and effect. He added to this His saying: ﴿And those who took﴾ meaning they treated their original natures and minds until they took ﴿besides Him﴾ meaning from the lowest rank of His ranks ﴿allies﴾ they worship them like idols, and anyone who follows his desires in any of the matters has taken the devil as a commander for him in that as an ally besides Allah, in opposition to His command.

And when what they did was of great ugliness, the longing for their punishment intensified upon him, so He informed about it, glorified and exalted is He, with His saying, expressing with the greatest name as an indication of the clarity of their misguidance and the severity of their threat, exposing it from the conjunction so that it would not be assumed that the preservation is caused by the mentioned taking, returning to the expression of majesty, magnifying what is in polytheism of injustice and intensifying what its doer deserves of reprimand: ﴿Allah﴾ meaning the One encompassing in attributes of perfection ﴿is a guardian over them﴾ meaning a watcher and caretaker and witness over their deeds, nothing of their conditions is hidden from Him. So if He wills, He keeps them upon their disbelief and punishes them for it with what He has prepared for the disbelievers. And if He wills, He grants them repentance and erases that in essence and effect, so He does not punish them nor reprimand them. And if He wills, He erases it in essence and keeps the effect until He reprimands them ﴿And you are not a guardian over them﴾ meaning until it does not obligate you to observe all their conditions from their sayings and actions, so you preserve them and compel them to abandon them and similar matters that a guardian undertakes, which is what the one entrusted with the matter does. Whether they say ﴿Do not listen to this Qur'an﴾ [Fussilat: 26] or they say ﴿Our hearts are in coverings﴾ [Fussilat: 5] or otherwise.