If Allah had willed, I would not have recited it to you. This means that my recitation is only by the will of Allah and the bringing forth of a remarkable matter that is outside of the norms. It is that an unlettered man, who has not learned, nor listened, nor witnessed scholars for an hour of his life, nor grew up in a land with scholars, reads to them an eloquent book. It dazzles all eloquent speech and surpasses all prose and poetry. It is filled with knowledge from the sciences of the fundamentals and branches, and news of what was and what will be, speaking of the unseen that only Allah knows. And I have lived among you for forty years, observing your conditions, and nothing of my secrets is hidden from you. You have not heard a word of that from me, nor has anyone among my closest people introduced me to it, nor have I informed you of it on my tongue. Al-Hasan read: 'nor did I inform you of it,' in the dialect of one who says: 'I gave him and pleased him,' meaning 'I gave it to him and pleased him.' This is supported by the reading of Ibn Abbas: 'nor did I warn you of it.' Al-Farra' narrated: 'nor did I inform you of it,' with the hamzah. There are two interpretations for this. One is that the alif is turned into a hamzah, as it is said: 'I have begun with Hajj.' 'I mourned the dead,' and 'I sweetened the flour.' This is because the alif and the hamzah are from the same source. Do you not see that when the alif is touched by a movement, it turns into a hamzah? The second is that it is from 'dar'ahu' if I pushed him away, and 'adr'ahu' if I made him a defender. The meaning is: 'nor did I make you, by my recitation, adversaries who would push me away with argument and deny me.' Ibn Kathir said: 'And I would have informed you of it,' with the lam of beginning to affirm the informing, and its meaning is: 'If Allah had willed, I would not have recited it to you, and I would have informed you of it through someone else. But He bestows His favor upon whom He wills from His servants, and He has chosen me for this honor and deemed me worthy of it over other people.' I have indeed lived among you for a lifetime. It is read as 'a lifetime' with the sukoon. This means: I have remained among you as a youth and an adult, yet you have not recognized me as engaging in anything of its kind, nor could I have been described as knowledgeable and eloquent, so that you would accuse me of fabricating it. Do you not understand that it is only from Allah, not from someone like me? This is a response to what they concealed under their saying: 'Bring a Qur'an other than this,' attributing the fabrication to him.