His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "Are they waiting except that the angels come to them or that the command of your Lord comes? Thus did those before them. And Allah did not wrong them, but they were wronging themselves." "So they were struck by the evils of what they did, and there surrounded them what they used to mock." "And those who associated others with Allah said, 'If Allah had willed, we would not have worshipped anything besides Him, neither we nor our forefathers, nor would we have forbidden anything without Him.' Thus did those before them. So is there upon the messengers except the clear notification?" The word "waiting" means "expecting." And "to look" when it is from the sight of the eye, the Arabs make it transitive with "to." And when it is not made transitive with "to," it means "to wait," as the poet said: "So if you both look at me for an hour, it will benefit me in the time of the Jundub." And from His saying, exalted and majestic is He, in narration: "Look to us, we will take from your light" [Al-Hadid: 13]. And it has come in a rare form, "look" meaning sight, transitive without "to," as in the poet's saying: "The beautiful and handsome ones look, as the deer look at the bushes." The majority read: "They come to them" with a 'ta' from above, and Hamzah and Al-Kisai read: "They come to them" with a 'ya.' This is the reading of Yahya ibn Wathab, Talhah, and Al-Amash. The meaning of the words is that the angels come to them to take their souls while they are wronging themselves. And His saying: "Or that the command of your Lord comes" is a threat that includes the Day of Resurrection or the punishment of this world. Then He mentioned that this was the action of their predecessors from the nations, meaning they were punished, and that was not injustice because that punishment was not placed in the wrong place. But they wronged themselves by placing their disbelief in the direction of Allah, exalted and majestic is He, and their inclination towards idols and false gods. This is placing something in the wrong place. And they wronged themselves, meaning they harmed themselves by their own actions, even if they did not intend to harm or wrong themselves. And His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "So they were struck by the evils of what they did," means the recompense of that in this world and the Hereafter. "And surrounded" means descended and encompassed. And here there is something omitted that is indicated by the apparent meaning of the words, its estimation being: the recompense of what they used to mock.

And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿And those who associated others with Allah said﴾, is a dispute from the disbelievers. This is because most of the disbelievers believe in the existence of Allah, exalted is He, and that He is their Creator and Provider. If the people of this verse are from this category, it is as if they said: O Muhammad, we are in the sight of Allah in our worship of idols, and taking them to benefit us and bring us closer. If Allah disliked our actions, He would have changed them a long time ago, either by destroying us or guiding us. And there was a group of disbelievers who do not believe in the existence of Allah. If the people of this verse are from this category, it is as if they took the argument against the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, from his saying, meaning: The Lord whom you affirm, O Muhammad, and He is as you describe Him, knows and has power. There is no doubt that He knows our state, and if He disliked it, He would have changed it. The response to these two groups is that Allah, exalted is He, forbids disbelief and has willed it for a people. He has set up evidence, sent messengers, and made everything easy for what has been decreed upon them. This dispute—between whichever of the two categories I have posited—is not mockery. However, Abu Ishaq al-Zajjaj said that this speech is in the context of jest. Abu Ishaq went—Allah knows best—to say that the group that does not speak of sin, then established the proof from the doctrine of its opponent as if it were mocking in that. And this is pure debate, and the response to it is as we have mentioned. And His saying: ﴿Is there upon the messengers except the clear conveyance?﴾ refers to what we have mentioned.

And His saying: "And We did not forbid" refers to the al-Bahira, the Sa'iba, the Wasilah, and other things that they have forbidden. And Allah, blessed and exalted, informed that this inclination had preceded them among the earlier disbelievers. As if He said: And the matter is not as they thought, that if Allah, exalted is He, willed disbelief, He would not command to abandon it. Rather, Allah has set up evidence for His servants and sent messengers as warners, and there is upon them nothing but clear conveyance.