And when the decree was: So when they come to them, they will disperse. Indeed, the polytheists have separated after your coming to them, and the great evidence has come to them, to the guided and the misled, and the misled to the openly defiant and the secretive. Likewise, the people of the Book. Then the Arabs did not unite upon guidance except after the evidence came to them. He added to this, which the context makes clear, his saying, informing of the increase of the ugliness in the occurrence of sin from the world by singling them out with the explicit mention of the polytheists: "And they did not disperse" meaning now and in the past there was a great dispersion. "Those" and when they were in a state that was more appropriate for turning away, he built for the action his saying: "They were given the Book" meaning regarding what they were upon of the consensus on misguidance or the promise of following the awaited truth in Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him. Likewise, their action regarding Jesus, blessings be upon him, before. Some of them continued upon misguidance and persisted in breaking the covenant and obstinacy, while some fulfilled the promise and were guided. Their dispersion did not become a dispersion except for a short time. Then they gathered, and none among them was safe from being counted (p-191) in his opposition to the others as a dispersion due to it being little from much. For this reason, he included the conjunction and said: "Except after" and that short time was with the Islam of those who embraced Islam from the tribes of the Arabs who had been united upon Christianity from Tanukh, Ghassan, and the tribes of Bakr ibn Wa'il, and Abd al-Qays and others like them, as well as those who had converted from the tribes of Yemen and embraced Islam. Then the Jews and Christians united upon misguidance, and none among them embraced Islam except for those who do not count as a separator for their fewness. "What" meaning the time in which "the evidence came to them" or the coming of "the evidence". Their state was as He, glorified and exalted is He, said: "And they were before seeking victory over those who disbelieved, but when there came to them what they recognized, they disbelieved in it" [Al-Baqarah: 89]. And indeed, the coming of the evidence necessitated their gathering upon the truth, it does not separate them in it. And it is as if he referred to the polytheists with the conjunction and did not explicitly mention them because they were the opposite of the people of the Book; they did not disperse except for a short time at the beginning. So the misled among them were more, then they united upon guidance due to their sound nature and balanced temperament. This indicated the utmost deviation of the people of the Book because they were more deserving of uniting upon guidance due to the knowledge they possessed than the polytheists. This indicated that the occurrence of obstinacy and defiance from the world was greater, and its occurrence was a calamity for them due to the strength of what their natures had of the murkiness of deficiency by their upbringing and nurturing (p-192) with sins from consuming unlawful earnings from usury and other major sins and procrastination in repentance. Their bodies became accustomed to that, and their hearts were infused with it until the darkness of it accumulated, and its rain and clouds thickened. So when they called, they had nothing of light that would give them the ability to respond to the call.