And His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

﴿Those towns We relate to you some of their news. And indeed, their messengers came to them with clear signs, but they were not to believe in what they had denied before. Thus does Allah seal the hearts of the disbelievers.﴾

﴿And We did not find for most of them any covenant. And We found most of them to be defiantly disobedient.﴾

"Those" is a beginning, and "the towns" some say: it is an adjective and the news is "We relate". This is supported by the fact that the intent is to inform about the stories.

(p-10) Al-Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And the apparent meaning to me is that "the towns" is the news of the beginning, and in that is a meaning of glorification for them and for their destruction. This is as it was said in ﴿This is the Book﴾ [Al-Baqarah: 2]: that it is a beginning and news, and as the Prophet ﷺ said: "Those are the great ones", and as the saying of Umayyah ibn Abi al-Salt:

؎ Those are the noble qualities............ ∗∗∗.......................

And this is abundant, and it is as if in the wording there is a meaning of regret over the mentioned towns, and the meaning is: We relate to you some of the news of the past so that you may discern the lessons and know the examples that Allah inflicted upon the past.

Then He began the news about all of them with His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿And indeed, their messengers came to them with clear signs, but they were not to believe in what they had denied before.﴾

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

And this statement has four possible interpretations; one of them is that He means that the messenger came to each group of them and they denied him at first, then his proof became clear and the signs indicating his truthfulness appeared with the continuation of his call, so they persisted in their disbelief and did not believe in what became evident to them as a denial from before. And it is as if He described them - according to this interpretation - with stubbornness in disbelief and rigidity against it, and this is supported by His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿Thus does Allah seal the hearts of the disbelievers.﴾ And it is possible - in this interpretation - that the meaning is: ﴿But they were not to believe﴾ meaning: they were not to be guided by Allah to believe because they had denied before, so their denial was a reason for them to be prevented from faith thereafter.

The second of the interpretations is that He means: the last of them in time and era was not to be guided and believe in what the first of them in time and era denied, but rather all of them disbelieved, and some of them followed the ways of others in disbelief.

(p-11) Al-Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

This saying is indicated by Al-Naqqash, so it is as if the pronoun in His saying: "they were" refers specifically to the latter ones, and the pronoun in His saying: "they denied" refers specifically to the earlier ones among them.

The third of the interpretations is that it is possible that He means: those mentioned altogether - if they were returned to the world and allowed to return - would not believe in what they denied during their lifetime and the call of the messenger to them. This was said by Mujahid and he linked it to His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿And if they were returned, they would return to what they were forbidden﴾ [Al-An'am: 28], and this is also a profound description of stubbornness and persistence in disbelief, rather it is the ultimate in that.

And the fourth of the faces is that it is possible that he means by his saying that they would not have believed in what had previously been in the knowledge of Allah, glorified and exalted is He, that they are deniers of it. So he made the previous decree upon them as a form of their denial of themselves, especially since their denial had manifested at the time of the coming of the messengers. This interpretation has been mentioned by the interpreters, and they have associated it with the fact that Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, decreed upon them denial at the time of taking the covenant, which is the saying of Ubayy ibn Ka'b, may Allah be pleased with him.

And His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "And We did not find for most of them any covenant". He informed, glorified and exalted is He, that He did not find for most of them any steadfastness on the covenant that He took from the descendants of Adam at the time of extracting them from his back. This was said by Abu Al-Aliyah from Ubayy ibn Ka'b. It is possible that the speech indicates that they did not direct their minds to the evident signs, nor did they thank the blessings of Allah, nor were they led by the miracles of the prophets. For these matters are a covenant upon the shoulders of the wise, like the covenants that should be fulfilled. Also, since Adam, peace be upon him, the covenant which is in the meaning of the testament has been established, and with this, Al-Hasan interpreted this verse. So the meaning comes: And We did not find for most of them adherence to the covenant and acceptance of the testament, as mentioned by Al-Mahdawi. And "from" in this verse is extra, except that it gives a totality of the type of covenant, and this does not come except after the negation. And "if" is the lightened form of the heavy one according to Sibawayh, and the "lam" in His saying: "for the wicked" is for the distinction between the lightened "if" and the other. And "if" according to Al-Farra' is in the meaning of "what", and the "lam" is in the meaning of "except", and the estimation according to him is: And We did not find most of them except for the wicked.