Then he explained that this is due to the fact that their collective desire for it has been ongoing for a long time while they continue in it, by his saying: ﴿They wish﴾, meaning they loved with a great and vast love that exceeds limits, and this is accompanied by their continued persistence in that. He emphasized their eagerness for this affection by what can be understood as longing. Indeed, this is ongoing from them, not that it has occurred and passed. He said, indicating their corruption of the power of speech and the creation of innate courage: ﴿If you were to soften﴾, meaning if you were to be lenient and agree to some of what they want, then you would make peace with them regarding leaving off prohibiting them from polytheism and refraining from insulting their deities, belittling their dreams, and misleading their forefathers; Ibn Burjan said: And 'softening' means being lenient and yielding to falsehood and turning a blind eye to the truth while being aware of it - this has ended.

And it is from 'dahn' because it softens what is applied with it.

And when it was in their nature that they would sometimes soften to him ﷺ [deceptively -] as it was said regarding the reason for the revelation of 'Al-Kafirun' that they said to him ﷺ: Come, let us agree to worship your God for a year and you worship our deities for a year, and similar falsehoods, until they prostrated behind him ﷺ when he recited to them Surah An-Najm, and he prostrated in it, so the disbelievers, believers, jinn, and humans prostrated behind him ﷺ until the emigrants heard about it while they were in Abyssinia, and some of them returned [thinking -] that they had embraced Islam, but they found them upon the most vile of what they had been upon initially. Allah, glorified and exalted is He, said, informing that this is deception from them: ﴿So they soften﴾, meaning because of their affection for you, you soften [to them -] they soften. So it is an addition to [“They wish” not -] an answer to “If” for the purpose of alerting him ﷺ that their softness is merely deception that does not intend anything other than corruption. They have delayed the softening even though they were previously in affection, hoping that you would begin with it, and they would then reveal it at that time. Al-Qushayri said: Whoever wakes up ill wishes that all people were sick.