His saying - glorified and exalted is He -: "And among them are some who listen to you, and We have placed veils over their hearts so they do not understand it, and in their ears is deafness. Even if they see every sign, they will not believe in them. Until when they come to you to argue with you, the disbelievers say, 'This is nothing but the legends of the ancients.'"

The pronoun in His saying: "And among them" refers back to the disbelievers mentioned earlier in His saying: "And the Day We gather them all together" [Al-An'am: 22]. He used the singular form "listens"; it is an action of a group, based on the wording of "who". And "veils" is the plural of "kinan"; it is the covering that gathers; from it is the quiver of arrows; and "the cover"; and from it is His saying: "White, well-guarded" [As-Saffat: 49]; and from it is the saying of the poet:

When they draw it in battle from the coverings, You would think the lightning of rain has stirred its clouds.

And "the form" and "the plural forms" are a means in their speech.

And "so they do not understand it" is in the accusative for the purpose of it; meaning: "due to their dislike of understanding it"; and it was said: the meaning is: "that they do not understand it"; and this saying requires the implicit negation particle. And "they understand it" means: "they comprehend it"; and it is said: "the man understood" with a kasra on the qaf, if he comprehended something; and "he became a faqih" with a damma, if he became knowledgeable with a mastery; and "he prevailed in understanding" if he surpassed others in knowledge.

And "deafness" is the heaviness in hearing; it is said: "his ear has become heavy"; and "it has become heavy" with a kasra on the qaf; and with a fatha; and from it is the saying of the poet:

And from the bad speech, my ear has become heavy, And there is nothing in me from deafness.

And it has been heard: "a deaf ear"; so the action here is "has become heavy"; and Talha ibn Musarif read: "deafness" with a kasra on the waw; as if he referred to their ears; and it has been read with a fatha as if it referred to deafness, just as a beast becomes heavy with a load; and this is an odd reading. And this is an expression of what Allah, glorified and exalted is He, has placed in the souls of these people of error and distance from accepting good; not that they were not hearing His words.

And His saying: "And even if they see every sign"; the sign here refers to the sight of the eye; He means the splitting of the moon and its like.

Qadi Abu Muhammad - may Allah have mercy on him - said: The purpose of this verse is that they are in the most incapable degree; and they attempted to reject the truth with mere claims; and the waw in His saying: "And We have placed" is the waw of the state; and the rule is that it should be stated with "indeed"; and it may sometimes come implied. And the clarification of that is that He, glorified and exalted is He, said: And among these disbelievers are some who listen to you while they are in ignorance in their hearts, in a covering; and their ears are deaf; and they see the signs but do not believe in them; yet when they reach the utmost limit of this deficiency, when they come to argue, they respond with a mere claim.

And the argumentation is the confrontation in contention; it is derived from "al-jadal"; and "this" in their saying is an indication to the Qur'an.

'And 'al-asatir': the plural of 'ashtar'; like 'aqwal' and 'aqawil' and similar to it. 'Ashtar': the plural of 'satr' or 'satar'. It is said: 'al-asatir' is the plural of 'istarah', which means nonsense. It is also said: it is the plural of 'usturah', like 'u'jubah' and 'udhakah'. It is said that it is a collective noun, having no singular form in its wording, like 'ababeed' and 'shamamit'. The meaning is: 'the news of the ancients, their tales, and their stories which are written and narrated, but not verified, like histories. The disbelievers likened them to the tales of al-Nadr ibn al-Harith and Abu Abdullah ibn Abi Umayyah about Rustam and Sindbad. The argument of the disbelievers was their intention to extinguish the light of Allah with their false mouths. Al-Tabari mentioned from Ibn Abbas that he illustrated from that their saying: 'Indeed, you who follow Muhammad eat what you have killed by your slaughter, and do not eat what Allah has killed.' And similar to this is the confusion from which no proof can be established. Qadi Abu Muhammad - may Allah have mercy on him - said: This is a dispute regarding a ruling; and what is in the verse is merely a dispute in the defense of the Qur'an; so the verse should not be interpreted by me regarding the matter of slaughter.