And when this was established, it was undoubtedly a reason for the lack of sadness over anything concerning them, nor over anything concerning others who disobeyed any of these rulings. As He, the Most High, said: "No calamity strikes upon the earth or in yourselves except that it is in a Book before We bring it into being" [Al-Hadid: 22]. Until He said: "So that you do not grieve over what has escaped you" [Al-Hadid: 23]. So His saying: "O Messenger" means: the one who conveys what he was sent with - it is connected to what came before it - and the clearest evidence of that is His saying, the Most High: "And whoever Allah intends to misguide, you will never possess for him any [benefit] from Allah". "Do not let it sadden you"; meaning: do not let the actions of "those who hasten to disbelief" cause you any sadness; meaning: they act with utmost haste in falling into it, like one who races against another. And in their distinction from the hypocrites and the People of the Book is a sign of the completion of the blessing upon the Arabs by the continuity of their Islam and their victory over them. And He presented the worst of the two categories, saying: "Among those who said, 'We have believed'". And since the speech is about the inner self, He expressed it by qualifying it with His saying: "With their mouths"; indicating their being hypocrites by that which is further from the heart than the tongue. They are closer to animals than they are to humans. And this was further clarified by His saying: "And their hearts have not believed."

And when he clarified the hasteners among the hypocrites, he turned to another group; they are the most intense people in brotherhood with them. He said: "And from those who are Jews"; meaning: those whose hearts know, and their tongues have disbelieved, following the contradiction of their hearts to what they know, out of stubbornness and tyranny. Then he informed about them by saying: "Listening"; meaning: they are extremely receptive, with utmost desire, "to lies"; meaning: from a people of hypocrites who come to you and convey lies about you. "Listening to another people"; meaning: the truth. Then he described them by saying: "They did not come to you"; meaning: for a reason; and he mentioned the pronoun to indicate the speech; for the intended meaning is the hatred of their hypocrisy. "They distort the words"; meaning: that which they hear from you in its original form; so they exaggerate in changing it and tilting it, after they have measured the two meanings: the changed and the intended, and the two words; so they do not stray far from it; rather they take the word from its limit and edge to another limit very close to it. And for this reason, he confirmed the conjunction; he said: "After"; meaning: they affirm the tilting from a place close to "its locations"; meaning: the descent from its rank, by interpreting it in a way other than its interpretation; or they affirm words that are not his words, close to them; so the meaning does not stray far from them. And this is a more precise deception than what is in "An-Nisa"; and it is from "the letter"; and it is the limit; and the edge; and "he deviated from something": he tilted away from it. Al-Saghani said: And the distortion of the words from their locations: is their change. And Abu Abdullah Al-Qazzaz said: And the distortion: is the action from "he deviated from something"; if he tilted. So the meaning of "I distorted the words": I removed it from the reality of what it was in meaning; and I kept for it a semblance of the wording; and from it is His saying (the Most High): "They distort the words"; and that is because the Jews used to change the meanings of the Torah with similarities. And in the hadith: "A plague will be unleashed upon them that distorts the hearts"; meaning: it changes them from reliance, and calls them to migrate from that land. And it has been reported: "I distorted it from its direction" - meaning: by lightening it -; like: I distorted it; and the distortion: is the comparison; from "the measuring tool"; which is the tilt by which wounds are measured. Thus ends.

So the verse is from the intertwining: "He omitted the coming first, and confirmed its absence second, for the indication of it; and he omitted the truth second, and indicated it by affirming its opposite - the lie - in the first."

And when it was as if it was said: What is their aim in affirming the lie and distorting the truth? He said: "They say"; meaning: to whoever agrees with them; "If you are given"; meaning: from any giver; "this"; meaning: the fabricated and distorted; "then take it"; meaning: act upon it; "and if you are not given it"; meaning: by being given something else; or if it is withheld from you; "then beware"; meaning: that you are given something else and you accept it.

And when the decree was: "So those are the ones whom Allah intended to test"; He added to it His saying: "And whoever Allah intends"; meaning: the one to whom belongs all command; "His test"; meaning: that what diverts him from the path of his happiness is truly disbelief, or metaphorically; "then you will not possess for him from Allah"; meaning: the supreme king, who has no equal; "anything"; meaning: of happiness; and if you do not possess that, and you are the closest of creation to Allah, then who can possess it?!

And when this necessarily results in His saying: "Those"; meaning: the far ones from guidance; "who did not intend Allah"; meaning: He is the one for whom there is no repeller of what He intends; nor is there an actor for what repels Him; so this is the most severe of the verses upon the Mu'tazilah; "to purify their hearts"; meaning: with faith; and the sentence is like the cause for His saying: "Then you will not possess for him from Allah anything"; and when it was established that their hearts are impure; that resulted in His saying: "For them in this world is disgrace"; meaning: with humiliation and degradation; as for the hypocrites, it is by revealing secrets and great scandals, and their fear of destruction; and as for the Jews, it is by showing that they distorted and changed, and by imposing the jizyah upon them; and other than that from the humiliations; "And for them in the Hereafter"; which whoever loses it, there is no profit for him in any way; "is a great punishment"; meaning: for the enormity of what they have committed from these multiplied sins.