Those upon whom the saying has become due are the devils or the leaders of disbelief and its heads. And the meaning of 'the saying has become due upon them' is that its implication has become obligatory upon them and is established, which is His saying: 'I will surely fill Hell with jinn and mankind all together.' These are the subject, and 'those whom We led astray' is its description, and the reference to the relative is omitted, and 'We led them astray' is the news. The 'kaf' is a description of an omitted source, its estimate being: 'We led them astray,' so they went astray just as we went astray. They mean: we did not lead astray except by our choice, not that there were lead astrayers above us who compelled us or forced us. Or that we were called to error and it was made appealing to us. So these likewise went astray by their choice, because our leading them astray was nothing but whispering and making it appealing, not coercion and force. There is no difference then between our leading astray and their straying. And if our making it appealing was a call to disbelief for them, then in response there was a call from Allah to them to believe in what He placed in them of the evidence of reason, and what He sent to them of the messengers and revealed to them of the scriptures filled with promise and warning, admonitions and deterrents, and that alone is enough to turn them away from disbelief and call them to faith. This is the meaning of what Allah has narrated about the devil: 'Indeed, Allah promised you the promise of truth, and I promised you, but I failed you. And I had no authority over you except that I called you, and you responded to me. So do not blame me, but blame yourselves.' And Allah, the Exalted, presented this meaning first, when He said to Iblis: 'Indeed, My servants, you have no authority over them except for those who follow you of the deviators.' We disavow ourselves to You from them and from what they chose of disbelief by themselves, a desire from them for falsehood and a disdain for truth, not by our power to compel them nor any authority that they were worshipping us; rather, they were worshipping their desires and obeying their lusts. And the removal of the conjunction from both sentences is because they are confirming the meaning of the first sentence.