His saying, exalted and glorified is He:

﴿And warn them of the Day of the Approaching, when hearts will be at the throats, suppressing [their anguish]. There will be for the wrongdoers no friend nor intercessor who is obeyed.﴾ ﴿He knows the treachery of the eyes and what the breasts conceal.﴾ ﴿And Allah judges with truth, and those whom they invoke besides Him do not judge with anything. Indeed, Allah is the Hearing, the Seeing.﴾ ﴿Have they not traveled through the earth and observed how was the end of those before them? They were greater than them in strength and in impression on the earth. But Allah seized them for their sins, and they had not from Allah any protector.﴾

Allah, the Exalted, commanded His Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, to warn the worlds and to caution them about the Day of Resurrection and its horrors. This is what He intended by [the Day of the Approaching]. Mujahid, Ibn Zayd, and Qatadah said this. The meaning of ﴿ [the Approaching]:﴾ is the near one. When something approaches, it becomes close. The Approaching in the verse is an attribute of something omitted that has been known and settled in the souls, its terror. He expressed it by proximity as a means of warning. The estimation is: the Day of the Approaching Hour, or the Approaching Catastrophe, or something like this. It is as if He said: "And warn them of the Hour," so that its horror would be known by what has settled in the souls regarding its matter. Thus, it is known here when He came with its attribute that necessitates its occurrence and proximity.

And His saying, exalted and glorified is He: ﴿When hearts will be at the throats﴾ means: at the throats, having risen from the severity of the horror and fear. This matter may be a reality on the Day of Resurrection, where the hearts of humans transition to their throats while their lives remain, unlike in this world where no one remains with the transition of their hearts. It may also be a metaphor expressing what a person experiences from fear and the rising of his soul and the constriction of his throat due to the rising of the heart. This is like what the Arabs say: "My soul almost departs." This meaning is found in the one who is excessively fearful, like one who is brought close to being killed or similar.

And His saying, exalted and glorified is He: ﴿Suppressing﴾ is a state of what has been substituted for His saying, exalted and glorified is He: ﴿When hearts will be at the throats﴾, or it is something added to [the hearts] when the intended meaning is: when the hearts of the people are at their throats. This is like His saying, exalted and glorified is He: ﴿The eyes will be staring﴾ [Ibrahim: 42] ﴿Rushing﴾ [Ibrahim: 43], meaning: their eyes will be staring in it. And "the suppressor" is the one who restrains his anger and fear in his chest.

So the meaning of the verse is that they hope to suppress what they find in their throats while the situation overcomes them. Then Allah, the Exalted, informed that the wrongdoers of disbelief, in that state, have no close friend who cares for them and no intercessor who is obeyed for them. And if some of them intend to intercede for others, it is an intercession that will not be accepted. It has been narrated that some disbelievers will say to Iblis on the Day of Resurrection: "Intercede for us," and he will stand to intercede, and a foul odor will emanate from him that harms the people of the gathering, then he will be confined and fall down and be humiliated. And "is obeyed" is in the place of the description for [the intercessor]; because the estimation is: and no intercessor who is obeyed, and the position of [is obeyed] is possible to be in the genitive case as a burden on the wording, and it is possible that it is in the nominative case as a conjunction to the previous position before the entry of [from].

The judge Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This entire verse is, in my view, an eloquent objection in the speech. And His saying, the Most High: ﴿He knows the treachery of the eyes﴾ is connected to His saying: ﴿Swift is the reckoning﴾ [Ghafir: 17]; because the swiftness of His reckoning for creation is indeed by His knowledge, which does not require any observation or reflection, nor anything from what the calculators need. And a group said: [He knows] is connected to His saying, the Most High: ﴿Nothing is hidden from Allah of them﴾ [Ghafir: 16], and this is a good saying, supported by the correspondence of the two meanings, and weakened by the distance of the verse from the verse and the abundance of the intervening factors. And the treachery is a source like betrayal, and it is possible in the verse that [treachery] is a name of the doer, as you say: the gaze of the eyes, meaning: He knows the eyes when they betray in their gaze. And this verse expresses Allah's knowledge of all hidden matters, including the breaking of eyelids, the winking of the eye, and the glance that conveys a meaning, or which its owner intends a meaning. And from this is the saying of the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, when Abdullah ibn Abi Sarh came to him to embrace Islam after his apostasy through the intercession of Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him. The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, hesitated towards him, then he pledged allegiance to him. Then the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, said to his companions: "Why did not a man stand up to him when I hesitated towards him and strike his neck?" They said: O Messenger of Allah, did he not gesture to us? He said, blessings and peace be upon him: "It is not appropriate for a Prophet to have the treachery of the eyes." And in some of the revealed books from the saying of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic: "I am the observer of intentions, I am the All-Knowing of the realm of thought and the breaking of eyelids." And Mujahid said: ﴿The treachery of the eyes﴾ is the stealing of the gaze towards what is not permissible. Then Allah, the Most High, reinforced this news by stating that He knows what the breasts conceal, of what has not appeared to the eye or anything else. And the interpreters have likened in this verse the gaze of a man towards a woman who is forbidden to him, and they said: The treachery of the eyes is the second glance, and what the breasts conceal, meaning: at the first glance which a person cannot avoid. The judge Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: And this example is part of the treachery of the eyes. Then he criticized the aspect of idols, informing that there is no Lord other than Him, who judges with truth, meaning: He rewards the good deed tenfold and the bad deed with its like, and He gives justice to the oppressed from the oppressor, and other than that from the judgments of truth and justice. And the idols do not judge anything nor execute a command. And "they invoke" means: they worship. The majority of the reciters read: "they invoke" with the ya, referring to the absent. Nafi' - with a difference from him - and Abu Ja'far, and Shaiba read: "you invoke" with the ta, meaning: say to them, O Muhammad, and those whom you invoke. Then the Most High mentioned two attributes for Himself, which are clear from the idols, and they are, in relation to Allah, the Most High, an expression of perception in its entirety.

Then he referred the disbelievers of Quraysh - who are the possessors of the pronoun in "they may travel" - to consider the ancient nations that denied their prophets, so Allah, glorified and exalted is He, destroyed them. And His saying, "So let them look," may be taken as a response to the question, and it may also be taken as a jussive, connected to "they may travel." And "how" in His saying, "how was the end of" has the news of "was" advanced, and in "how" there is a pronoun. This is on the assumption that "was" is the incomplete form. However, if it is taken as complete in the meaning of occurrence and happening, then "how" is an adverb that has no pronoun in it.

And Ibn 'Amir alone read: "more severe than you" with the letter 'kaf', and likewise it is in the manuscripts of the people of Sham. This is for the transition from the third person to the address. The others read: "more severe than them," and likewise it is in the other manuscripts. This is more appropriate for the mention of the absent. And "the traces in the earth" are the buildings, monuments, and worldly reputation. And "their sins" were the denial of the prophets upon them be blessings and peace. And "the protector" is the covering and preventing one, taken from protection.