'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful'

His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

﴿That is what We recite to you of the signs and the Wise Reminder﴾ ﴿Indeed, the example of Jesus in the sight of Allah is like the example of Adam. He created him from dust, then said to him, 'Be,' and he is﴾ ﴿The truth is from your Lord, so do not be among the doubters﴾ ﴿So whoever argues with you about it after what has come to you of knowledge, say, 'Come, let us call our sons and your sons, our women and your women, ourselves and yourselves. Then let us pray earnestly and invoke the curse of Allah upon the liars﴾

"That is" is raised by the beginning, and the indication by it is to what has preceded of the news. And ﴿We recite to you﴾ is the news of the beginning, and His saying: ﴿of the signs﴾ is to clarify the type, and it is permissible that it may be for part of it. And it is correct that ﴿We recite to you﴾ may be a state, and the news may be in His saying: ﴿of the signs﴾. And according to the saying of the Kufans, His saying "We recite to you" is a connection to that, in the manner of their saying in the verse of Ibn Mufarriq al-Himyari:

؎ ................ and this you carry freely

And the news may be in His saying: ﴿of the signs﴾. And the saying of the Basrians in the verse is that "you carry" is a state, the estimation is: and this is carried. And "We recite to you" means: we narrate it, and ﴿of the signs﴾ its apparent meaning is the signs of the Qur'an, and it is possible that He means by His saying: ﴿of the signs﴾ of the miracles and the astonishing things that they come to them with these unseen matters from us, and because of our recitation while you are unlettered and do not read. And you are not among those who accompanied the people of the Book. So the meaning is that they are signs for your prophethood. And this possibility can only be established with the condition that "We recite to you" is a state. And "the Reminder" is what descends from Allah, "the Wise" may be interpreted as meaning the decisive, for it is a noun meaning the acted upon, and it is correct that it may be interpreted as meaning one who is explicit in wisdom, so it would be a construction of the active participle. Ibn Abbas said: "the Reminder": the Qur'an, and "the Wise": that which has been perfected in its wisdom.

And Ibn Abbas and Qatadah and Ikrimah and al-Suddi and others mentioned that the reason for the revelation of His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿Indeed, the example of Jesus in the sight of Allah﴾.... the verse is that the delegation of the Christians of Najran argued with the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, regarding the matter of Jesus, and they said: 'We have heard that you insult our companion and say: he is a servant.' The Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'And what harm does that do to Jesus? Yes, he is a servant of Allah, and His Word which He cast to Mary, and a Spirit from Him.' They said: 'Have you ever seen a human being come without a male or heard of him?' And they left the Prophet, and Allah sent down this verse upon him.\

And His saying, exalted is He: "Indeed, the example" has been interpreted by some people as being a description of Jesus. They linked this to His saying, exalted is He: "The example of Paradise" [Ar-Ra'd: 35]. They said: Its meaning is: the description of Paradise. And this, in my view, is a weakness in understanding the meaning of the words. The meaning is that the example that is conceived by souls and minds of Jesus is like that which is conceived of Adam. For all people agree that Allah, exalted is He, created him from dust without a male. Likewise, the example of Paradise is an expression of what is conceived of it. In this verse, there is correctness in analogy, meaning: if the matter of Adam is conceived, then the permissibility of the matter of Jesus, peace be upon him, is analogized to it. And the 'kaf' in His saying: "like the example" is a noun according to what we have mentioned of the meaning. And His saying: "with Allah" is an expression of the truth in itself, meaning: this is how the matter is regarding what is hidden from you. And His saying: "He created him from dust" is an explanation of the example of Adam that should be conceived. The example and the model are of the same meaning, and it is not permissible for "He created him" to be a relative clause to Adam or a state from him. Al-Zajjaj said: The past cannot be a state in which you are, but it is a statement that is disconnected from him, its implication being an explanation of the example.

And His saying, exalted is He: "Then He said" is an arrangement for the news concerning Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him. The meaning is: He created him from dust, then it was from His command in eternity that He said to him: "Be" at such and such a time. And according to the view of Abu Ali al-Farisi that the saying is metaphorical, like "and he said a cotton", and that this verse is an expression of creation. So "then" is in its place in the arrangement of the two mentioned matters. And the reading of the majority is: "and he will be" in the nominative, meaning: so he will be. And Ibn Amer read: "and he will be" in the accusative, which is a weak reading, and its explanation has been previously mentioned in the address to Mary.

And His saying, exalted is He: "The truth is from your Lord" is raised as a beginning, and its news in what pertains to it is His saying: "from your Lord", or the truth is that, or what We have said to you. And it may be that it is the news of a beginning, its estimation being: this truth. And "the doubters" are the ones who doubt, and "doubt" is uncertainty. The Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, was prohibited in a phrase that implied reproach of the doubters. And this indicates that what is meant by doubt is something other than that. If it were said: So do not be a doubter, this indication would be less. And if it were said: So do not doubt, it would be even less. And the prohibition of the Prophet, peace be upon him, from doubt, along with its distance from him, is in the context of affirmation and permanence in his state.

And His saying, exalted is He: "So whoever argues with you about it" means: he argued with you and disputed with you the proof. The pronoun in His saying, exalted is He: "about it" may refer to 'Isa, and it may refer to the truth. And the 'knowledge' that is referred to by the coming is what these preceding verses have included regarding 'Isa. And His saying, exalted is He: "So say: Come..." is an invitation to invoke the curse, and "Come" is derived from the root of elevation. It is a word that was initially intended to show respect towards the one being invited, then it extended to the point that a person may say it to his enemy and to animals and the like. And "let us invoke the curse" means: let us curse, and it is said about them: the curse of Allah, meaning the curse. And 'invocation' means seriousness in supplication with the curse.

It has been narrated regarding the story of this verse: that it was revealed because of the argument of the Christians of Najran about 'Isa, peace be upon him, and their saying: he is Allah. They used to engage in much debate. And 'Abdullah ibn al-Harith ibn Juz' al-Siwai reported from the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, that he said: "I wish there were a barrier between me and the people of Najran so that I do not see them and they do not see me" due to the severity of their disputation. So when the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, recited the verse, he invited them to that. It has been narrated by al-Sha'bi and others that they promised him the next day that they would invoke the curse upon him. They went to the lord and the chief and they encouraged them to invoke the curse. Then they went to another wise man among them and mentioned to him what they had done, and he reproached them and said to them: If he is a prophet and then he invokes against you, you will be destroyed. And if he is a king and he appears, he will not leave any of you. They said: So what should we do since we have promised him?

He said: When you go out in the morning and he calls you to that, seek refuge with Allah from that, perhaps He may grant you pardon. So when the morning came, the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, went out holding Hussein, taking Hasan by the hand, and Fatimah walked behind him. He called them to the appointment, and they said: We seek refuge with Allah. He repeated it, and they repeated the seeking refuge. The Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said: If you refuse, then submit, and if you refuse, then give the jizyah willingly while you are humbled. If you refuse, then I declare to you equally. They said: We have no strength for war against the Arabs, but we will pay the jizyah. He then imposed upon them every year two thousand garments, 'one thousand in Rajab and one thousand in Safar.' They requested from him a trustworthy man to judge between them, so he sent with them Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah and said, peace be upon him: 'The bearer of good news has come to me about the destruction of the people of Najran if they continued with the cursing.' And Muhammad ibn Ja'far ibn al-Zubair and others narrated: When the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, called them, they said: Let us consider our matter, then we will come to you with what we will do. They went to the chief, who was their advisor, and said: O Abd al-Masih, what do you see? He said: O assembly of Christians, by Allah, you have certainly known that Muhammad is a true Prophet sent, and he has brought you the decisive news about your companion, Jesus. And you have known that no people have ever cursed a Prophet and remained unscathed, nor did their elders survive, nor did their young perish. And it would be total destruction if you did so. If you refuse except for the religion you are upon and the words you say about your companion, then make peace with the man and return to your land until time shows you its opinion. They came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and said: O Abu al-Qasim, we have decided not to curse you and to remain upon our religion. They made peace with him over wealth and said to him: Send with us a man from your companions whom you approve for us to judge in matters we have differed over regarding our wealth, for you have our satisfaction. And al-Suddi and others narrated that the Prophet, peace be upon him, came with Ali, Fatimah, Hasan, and Hussein and called them, but they refused and were distressed. Their scholars said to them: If you do so, the valley will be set ablaze against you. So they made peace with the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, for eighty thousand dirhams a year, and whatever the dirhams could not cover would be in goods: the garments at forty, and that they would provide thirty-three shields, thirty-three camels, and thirty-four horses every year, and the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, guaranteed that until he would receive it from them. The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'If they had cursed, they would have been eradicated from the surface of the earth.' And he also said: 'If they had done so, the valley would have been set ablaze against them.' Al-'Ilbah ibn Ahmar al-Yashkuri said: When this verse was revealed, Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, sent for Ali, Fatimah, and their two sons, Hasan and Hussein, and called the Jews to curse them. A young man from the Jews said: Woe to you! Wasn't your covenant yesterday with your brothers who were transformed into apes and pigs? So do not curse, and they stopped. In this story, there are differences among the narrators and expressions that all convey the meaning of what we have mentioned, but we aimed for brevity.

And in the abandonment of the Christians of the cursing, due to their knowledge of the prophethood of Muhammad, there is a great witness to the truth of his prophethood, blessings and peace be upon him. What has been narrated regarding this is better than what al-Sha'bi narrated about that wise man among them dividing the matter of Muhammad by saying that he is either a prophet or a king, because this is a worldly perspective. And what the narrators have reported that they abandoned the cursing due to their knowledge of his prophethood; this is a stronger proof for us against all the disbelievers, and more fitting for the situation of Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him. And the supplication of women and children for the cursing is more stirring for the souls and more likely to invoke the mercy of Allah, or to invoke His anger upon the falsifiers. The apparent matter is that the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, came to them with what concerns him, and if they had insisted; he would have called the believers with their children and their women. It is possible that he was content with himself and his close ones only.