His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

﴿And whatever good they do, it will not be denied to them, and Allah is Knowing of the righteous﴾ ﴿Indeed, those who disbelieve, their wealth and their children will not avail them against Allah at all. And they are the companions of the Fire; they will be therein eternally﴾ ﴿The example of what they spend in this worldly life is like a wind in which is a fierce cold that strikes the harvest of a people who have wronged themselves, and it destroys it. And Allah has not wronged them, but they wrong themselves﴾

Ibn Kathir, Nafi', and Asim in the narration of Abu Bakr and Ibn Amer read: "You do" and "It will be denied" with the 'taa', addressing this nation. Hamza, Al-Kisai, and Hafs from Asim read with the 'yaa' in both, resembling what has preceded in: "They recite" and "They believe", and what follows them. Abu Amr used to read with both ways.

And "It will be denied" means: it will be covered from you, so you will not be rewarded for it. From this is the saying of the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him: "And whoever I have removed a blessing from him, let him mention it. If he mentions it, he has shown gratitude for it; if he does not do so, he has denied it." And from this is the saying of the poet: (p-328)

........................ and denial is a disgrace to the soul of the benefactor.

And in His saying, exalted is He: ﴿And Allah is Knowing of the righteous﴾ is a promise and a warning. Then He followed the mention of this righteous group with the mention of the state of the disbelievers to clarify the difference. Allah specifically mentioned wealth and children for several reasons: among them is that they are the adornment of this worldly life and the greatest of what hopes run towards. Among them is that they are the closest support to a person and the easiest. Among them is that the disbelievers who deny the Hereafter have no concern except for it, and it is for them the ultimate goal, and by it they used to boast over the believers. So Allah mentioned that these two, which have these attributes, will not avail them from the punishment of Allah in the Hereafter. If this does not avail, then other distant matters are even less likely to avail.

And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿Companions of the Fire﴾ is a specification that necessitates the establishment of that for them and its permanence.

And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿The example of what they spend in this worldly life﴾...

The meaning of the verse is: the example that exists in the souls from their spending, which they consider to be a closeness, a reckoning, and a form of worship, and from its nullification on the Day of Resurrection and its being scattered like dust, and its going away is like the example that exists in the souls from the planting of a people that sprouted and became green, and hope grew strong in it, then a wind came upon it in which is a fierce cold that destroyed it. So the analogy occurred between two things and two things. Allah, exalted and majestic is He, mentioned one of the two compared things and left the other, then mentioned one of the two things it is compared to, and it is not that which corresponds to the first mentioned, and left the mention of the other, and the mentioned ones indicate the omitted ones. This is the height of eloquence and brevity. And similar to this is His saying, exalted is He: ﴿And the example of those who disbelieve is like the example of one who calls to that which hears nothing except a call﴾ [Al-Baqarah: 171].

Abdur-Rahman ibn Hurmuz al-A'raj read "tunfiqun" with a 'taa' meaning say to them, O Muhammad, and "mathal" was raised at the beginning, and its news is in a deleted form to which the 'kaaf' in His saying: "kamathal" is related. And "ma" means that which. The majority of the interpreters are of the opinion that "yunafiqoon" refers to the wealth that they used to spend in their hypocrisy and in opposing the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, and that was for them a means of drawing closer. Al-Suddi said: "yunafiqoon" means their words which they conceal against it.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And this is weak, because it implies that the verse is about the hypocrites, while the verse is indeed about disbelievers who openly declare what they conceal. Some of the interpreters went to the view that "yunafiqoon" refers to their actions of disbelief and the like, meaning it is like the wind that has a coldness, which invalidates all that they have of kinship ties and acts of worship like freeing a slave, just as the wind destroys the crops. And this is a good saying were it not for the distance of the metaphor in spending.

And the coldness is the intense cold that burns everything that blows upon it, and it is well-known. Ibn Abbas and the majority of the interpreters said: the coldness is the cold. The Arabs call it: al-dhareeb. Al-Zajjaj and others went to say that the term is from the sound, from their saying: "sarra al-shay'", and from it is the cold wind. Al-Zajjaj said: the coldness is the sound of the fire that is in the wind.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

The coldness is the breath of Hell that in the extreme cold burns something like what the fire burns.

And the cultivation encompasses both crops and fruits, because all of it results from the stirring of the earth, which is the reality of cultivation. And from it is the hadith: "There is no zakat except in a crop, or in a harvest, or in livestock."

And Allah, glorified and exalted is He, said: "They have wronged themselves." So what is the reason for this specification while the example is correct, even if the cultivation is for one who does not wrong himself? The answer is that the wrongdoing of the self in this verse has been interpreted by the majority of the interpreters as wrongdoing by disobeying Allah. Thus, the comparison has occurred with the cultivation of one who has this description, as his punishment is more hopeful, and Allah's seizing of him is more severe, and the vengeance against him is quicker and stronger, as has been narrated: "In the belly of the camel" and others. And also, among the people of knowledge are those who see that all the calamities of this world are indeed due to the disobedience of the servants, and this is derived from more than one verse in the Qur'an, so it is consistent with his saying: Indeed, every cultivation that is burned by a wind is only for one who has wronged himself. And some people, including al-Mahdawi, have inclined to the view that His saying, the Exalted, "harth qawmin zhalamu anfusahum" means: they planted at a time other than the time of planting.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And it should be said regarding this: they have wronged themselves by placing the actions of agriculture in a place other than its proper time or manner of action, and these are specifically mentioned because the burning in what has occurred in this manner is more severe and more firmly established. And this inclination resembles from one aspect the saying of Imru al-Qais:

And a past event like the dust of the wind, In which the misguided one has ignited.

So he specified the misguided because he throws fire into the green, beautiful palm tree that should not be burned. The fire extinguishes its moisture after it has been trimmed and turned black, and the resemblance comes out beautifully. The wise one does not ignite fire except in what is dry and deserving, for it goes away and nothing remains of it to be likened to it.

And the pronoun in "ظَلَمَهُمُ" refers to the disbelievers whose pronoun was previously mentioned in: "يُنْفِقُونَ," and it is not for the people of the harvest because they were not mentioned to respond to them or to clarify their wrongdoing. Also, his saying: ﴿وَلَكِنْ أنْفُسَهم يَظْلِمُونَ﴾ indicates the action of the present state of those present.