'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful' His saying, the Exalted: "O you who were given the Scripture, believe in what We have revealed, confirming what is with you, before We obliterate faces and turn them on their backs, or curse them as We cursed the companions of the Sabbath. And the command of Allah is a thing determined." "Indeed, Allah does not forgive that partners be associated with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills. And whoever associates partners with Allah has certainly committed a great sin." This is an address to the Jews and Christians, and 'what is with you' means: from the law and creed, not from what was with them that has been altered and changed. And 'obliterating' means: changing the signs, as Dhū al-Rumma said: 'From every dripping of the dew when it sweats, its obliterated signs are unknown.' And from that, the blind person with his eyes closed is called: blind and obliterated. A group said: 'The obliteration of faces here means that the effects of the senses in them are erased, and the creation is removed from them, so they return like the rest of the limbs in being devoid of the senses, and the turning on their backs in this context is in meaning, that is: their being devoid of senses on their backs due to being filled with them.' Ibn Abbas and Atiyyah al-Awfi said: 'The obliteration of faces is that the two eyes are specifically removed from them, and the eyes are turned to the back, so that would be a turning on the back, and he walks backward.' Al-Tabari reported from a group that 'the obliteration of faces is that their signs change and become places for hair, and that is the turning on the back.' Al-Tabari refuted this saying. Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, said: 'The first Islam of Ka'b was that he passed by a man at night while he was reciting this verse: "O you who were given the Scripture, believe in what We have revealed, confirming what is with you," and he placed his hands on his face and turned backward to his house, so he embraced Islam in his place, and he said: 'By Allah, I feared that I would not reach my house until my face would be obliterated.' Mujahid, al-Hasan, al-Suddi, and al-Dahhak said: 'That is a metaphor, and what is meant by it is the faces of guidance and righteousness, and their obliteration is the inevitable misguidance and turning away from it and the conversion to disbelief, which is the turning on the backs.' Ibn Zayd said: 'The faces are their homelands and residences in their lands to which they went out, and their obliteration is their expulsion from it, and the turning on the backs is their return to Sham from where they originally came.' And 'the companions of the Sabbath' are the people of Aila who transgressed on the Sabbath in hunting as previously mentioned, and their curse was that they were transformed into pigs and monkeys, as said by Qatadah, al-Hasan, and al-Suddi. And 'the command of Allah' in this context refers to one of the matters, indicating its kind, not one of the commands, for it is an expression of the created things such as punishment and curse here, or what is necessitated by every context of what is specific to it.

And His saying, exalted is He: "Indeed, Allah does not forgive that partners be associated with Him". This verse addresses the matter of promise and warning. The summary of the discussion in it is that it can be said: People are of four types: a disbeliever who dies upon his disbelief, and this one is eternally in the Fire by consensus. An excellent believer who has never sinned and dies upon that, this one is destined for Paradise according to the report from Allah, exalted is He, by consensus. A repentant person who dies upon his repentance is, according to the people of the Sunnah and the majority of the scholars of the Ummah, considered to be among the excellent believers, except that the rule of the theologians is that he is in the will of Allah. A sinner who dies before his repentance, this is the point of disagreement. The Murji'ah said: He is in Paradise by his faith, and his sins do not harm him. They based this statement on the fact that they considered all verses of warning to be specific to disbelievers, and the verses of promise to be general for believers, both the pious and the sinful. The Mu'tazilah said: If he is a perpetrator of a major sin, then he is in the Fire without a doubt. The Khawarij said: If he is a perpetrator of a major or minor sin, then he is eternally in the Fire, and he has no faith, because they see all sins as major. They based this statement on the fact that they considered all verses of promise to be specific to the excellent believer who has never sinned, and the repentant believer, and they made the verses of warning general for the sinners, whether disbelievers or believers. The people of the Sunnah and truth said: The verses of promise are evidently general, and the verses of warning are evidently general, and it is not correct to apply all of them to one side due to their contradiction, as in His saying, exalted is He: "None shall enter it except the most miserable" [Al-Lail: 15] "Who denied and turned away" [Al-Lail: 16], and His saying: "And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger, indeed, for him is the Fire of Hell" [Al-Jinn: 23]. This verse is the decisive one in clarifying what has contradicted from the verses. Therefore, we must say: The wording of the verses of promise is of a general nature, and what is meant by it is specificity for the excellent believer and for the repentant, and for whom Allah, exalted is He, has previously known that He will pardon him without punishment from the sinners. And the wording of the verses of warning is general, and what is meant by it is specificity for the disbelievers, and for whom Allah, exalted is He, has previously known that He will punish him from the sinners. We conclude with our statement: "This verse" is the text in the place of dispute, and it is His saying, exalted is He: "Indeed, Allah does not forgive that partners be associated with Him, and He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills." For it has clarified the doubt and refuted the two groups: the Murji'ah and the Mu'tazilah. This is because His saying, exalted is He: "Indeed, Allah does not forgive that partners be associated with Him" is a definitive separation agreed upon, and His saying: "And He forgives what is less than that" is a decisive separation against the Mu'tazilah, refuting their claim with a refutation that cannot be avoided. If we had stopped at this point in the discussion, the statement of the Murji'ah would have been correct. Thus, His saying: "For whom He wills" is a refutation against them, necessitating that the forgiveness of what is less than shirk is indeed for some people and not for others, contrary to what they claimed that it is forgiven for every believer.

The Mu'tazila attempted to interpret this verse by saying: "For whom He wills": it refers to the repentant one. What they intended is invalid, because the benefit of the division in the verse would be nullified, as the repentant from polytheism is forgiven.

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

The Murji'a attempted to interpret the verse by saying: "For whom He wills": its meaning is: He wills that he believes, He does not will to forgive him. So, the will is contingent upon the faith of the one who believes, not upon Allah's forgiveness for whom He forgives. This is countered by the fact that the verse necessitates - according to this interpretation - that His saying: ﴿And He forgives what is less than that﴾ is general for both the disbeliever and the believer. If the believers are specified by His saying: "For whom He wills," it must be that the disbelievers are not forgiven for what is less than that, and they are punished for it.

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

And this - although it has been said - is something that was not intended by the verse according to the interpretation of any of the scholars. This position is refuted by the length of the division, because polytheism is also forgiven for whom Allah wills to believe.

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

Among the verses of warning that the Mu'tazila used as evidence is His saying, the Exalted: ﴿And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein, and Allah is angry with him and curses him and has prepared for him a great punishment﴾ [An-Nisa: 93]. This verse is excluded from them for several reasons, one of which is that the most correct interpretation of His saying, the Exalted: "intentionally" is what Ibn Abbas said: that it means: considering it permissible. If someone considers permissible what Allah has prohibited for him, he has certainly disbelieved. What supports what Ibn Abbas said is that we find Allah, the Exalted, in the matter of killing, when He mentions retribution, He does not mention the warning, and when He mentions the warning of the Fire, He does not mention retribution. Thus, it appears that retribution is for the disobedient believer, and the warning is for the one who considers it permissible, who is in the ruling of the disbeliever. Another reason is that eternity - if not coupled with His saying: "forever" - it is permissible that it refers to an extended time, as this is customary in the speech of the Arabs. Do you not see that they greet kings with: "May Allah make your kingdom eternal?" And from that is the saying of Imru' al-Qais:

"And will anyone but Sa'id be eternal, A little troubled, what he spends the night with worries?"

And Abdullah ibn Amr said: "When the verse ﴿Say, O My servants who have believed, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins﴾ [Az-Zumar: 53] was revealed, some of the companions of the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'And polytheism, O Messenger of Allah?' Then was revealed: ﴿Indeed, Allah does not forgive that partners be associated with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills.﴾" And when He made it certain that He does not forgive polytheism, He mentioned the ugliness of its position and its severity among sins. And the slander is the most severe degree of falsehood in ugliness, and it is the fabrication for partisanship.