His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

﴿Those who believe in the unseen, establish prayer, and spend from what We have provided them﴾

"Believe" means: they affirm. It can be transitive with the preposition 'bi' (بِ), and it may also be transitive with 'li' (لِ) as He, exalted is He, said: (p-105)﴿And do not believe except for one who follows your religion﴾ [Al-Imran: 73]. And as He said: ﴿So no one believed in Moses﴾ [Yunus: 83]. There is a difference between the two transitive forms. This is because the transitive form with 'li' (لِ) inherently includes a transitive meaning with 'bi' (بِ) understood from the meaning.

The readers have differed regarding the hamzah in "believe": Ibn Kathir, Nafi', Asim, Ibn Amer, Hamzah, and Al-Kisai pronounce "believe" with a hamzah, as well as similar words like: "eat" (يَأْكُلُونَ), "command" (يَأْمُرُونَ), and "give" (يُؤْتُونَ). Likewise, with the movement of the hamzah, such as: "delay you" (يُؤَخِّرُكُمْ), and "burden him" (يَؤُودُهُ). However, Hamzah preferred to omit the hamzah when stopping, while the others stop with the hamzah. Warsh narrated from Nafi' the omission of the hamzah in all of that. It has been reported from Asim that he did not pronounce the hamzah when it was silent. Abu Amr, when he would join the recitation or read in prayer, did not pronounce every silent hamzah, except that he would pronounce certain letters from the silent ones, which will be mentioned in their places, if Allah wills.

And if the silence of the hamzah is a sign of the jasm, he would not omit its hamzah, like: "We will delay it" (نَنْسَأْها), and "Prepare for us" (هَيِّئْ لَنا) and similar.

And His saying "in the unseen"; a group said: its meaning is they affirm when they are absent and alone, unlike the hypocrites who believe when they are present and disbelieve when they are absent. Others said: they affirm what is unseen from what the laws have informed them. The expressions of the interpreters regarding this have differed. One group said: the unseen in this verse is Allah, exalted and majestic is He. Others said: it is destiny and decree. Others said: it is the Qur'an and what is in it of the unseen. Others said: it is resurrection, the path, the scale, paradise, and hell. These statements do not contradict; rather, the unseen applies to all of them.

And the unseen in the language is: what is hidden from you of a matter, and from the comforting of the earth which its interior is hidden in it.

(p-106) And His saying: "establish" means: they manifest it and affirm it, as it is said: the market has been established. This is a comparison to standing from a state of hidden sitting or otherwise. From it is the saying of the poet:

؎ And when it is said: you have come, they did not cease until the horses establish the market of battle.

And from it is the saying of the poet:

؎ We established for the people of the two Iraqs a market of the clash, and they fled and turned away all together.

The root of "establish" is "to stand"; the movement of the waw has been transferred to the qaf and has turned into a ya due to the kasrah preceding it. And "prayer" is derived from 'salla' (صَلّى) meaning to invoke. As the poet said:

؎ Upon you is like what you have invoked, so close your eyes to sleep, for indeed, beside a person is one lying down.

And from it is the saying of another:

؎ It has a guardian who does not cease, time does not abandon its house, even if it is slaughtered, it is invoked upon and murmured.

When prayer in the Shari'ah was a supplication, it was added to it the forms and recitation. All of this was named 'supplication.' Some said: It is taken from 'sala,' which is sweat in the middle of the back, and it differs at the waist, and it surrounds it. From this, the one praying took it in the race of horses, because he comes with the prayer of the preceding one. Thus, prayer was derived from it, either because it came second to faith, so it was likened to the one praying from the horses, or because the bowing and prostrating person bends his prayer. The saying that it is from supplication is better. And His saying, the Exalted: 'And from what We have provided them, they spend,' was written 'from what' connected, and 'what' means 'that which,' and its right is that it should be separate. However, the preposition and the object of the preposition are like one thing. Also, when the noon of 'min' was hidden in the pronunciation, it was omitted in writing. And 'rizq' according to the people of the Sunnah is what is valid for benefit, whether it is lawful or unlawful, contrary to the saying of the Mu'tazilah: that the unlawful is not provision. And 'they spend' here means: they give what the Shari'ah has obligated them from zakat, and what it has encouraged them to do besides that. Ibn Abbas said: 'They spend' means they give zakat seeking reward for it. Others said: The verse is about spending in jihad. Al-Dahhak said: It is a spending by which they sought to draw closer to Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, according to their ease. Ibn Mas'ud and Ibn Abbas also said: It is the spending of a man on his family. And the verse encompasses all, and these sayings are examples, and there is no disagreement.