If it were not for the first [meaning] of urging, and this [is] for the prevention of something due to the existence of another. The meaning is: And if it were not that I decreed to bestow upon you in this world various blessings, among which is the granting of respite for repentance, and to have mercy upon you in the Hereafter with pardon and forgiveness, I would have hastened to punish you for what you engaged in regarding the incident of slander. It is said: He poured forth in speech, and he rushed, and he plunged, and he immersed when the circumstance touched you, or you poured forth, receiving it, some of you from others. It is said: He received the saying and he learned it and he caught it. From it is His saying, 'And Adam received words from his Lord.' And it is read in the original: 'You receive it.' And 'when you receive it,' with the assimilation of the dhāl into the tā. And 'you receive it' is from meeting it meaning catching it. And 'you receive it' is from casting it some upon others. And 'you receive it' and 'you catch it' is from the light and the catching: which is lying. And 'you receive it' is narrated from Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, and from Sufyan: I heard my mother reciting: 'when you catch it.' And there is a version that says 'when you pursue it,' meaning you follow it, and both versions are readings. If you say: What is the meaning of His saying 'with your mouths' when the saying can only be with the mouth? I say: Its meaning is that the known thing is known in the heart, and the tongue translates it. Mahmoud said: If you say the saying can only be with the mouths, what is the benefit of mentioning it? I say: The intended meaning is that this saying was not an expression of knowledge that resided in the heart, but rather it is merely the saying of the tongue. Ahmad said: It is possible that the intended meaning is exaggeration, or it is an allusion that perhaps one boasts and concludes boasting decisively as a knowledgeable person, and this is more severe and conclusive, and it is the secret that is indicated by His saying: 'Certainly, hatred has appeared from their mouths.' And Allah knows best. And this slander is nothing but a saying that runs on your tongues and circulates in your mouths without translation from knowledge of it in the heart, as His saying: 'They say with their mouths what is not in their hearts.' That is: You consider it small, while it is great with Allah, necessitating [punishment]. And some of them said that he was distressed at death, so he was asked, and he said: I fear a sin that I did not consider, and it is great with Allah. And in the words of some: Do not say that any of your sins is insignificant, for perhaps with Allah it is a date palm while with you it is a seed. He described them as committing three sins and linked the touch of the great punishment to them. The first: Receiving the slander with their tongues, and that is that a man would meet a man and say to him: What is with you? And he would inform him of the slander until it became widespread and circulated, and there remained no house or gathering except that it spread in it. The second: Speaking of what they have no knowledge of. The third: Their belittling of that, and it is 'a great sin among the great sins.'