The promise of Allah is a confirmed source, like saying: You owe me a thousand dirhams as a recognition, because its meaning is: I acknowledge it to you with acknowledgment. And the promise of Allah is that it is a promise, because what preceded it is in the meaning of a promise. Allah, the Exalted and Majestic, reproached them for being wise in worldly matters, let alone in matters of religion. This is because they were merchants and earners. Al-Hasan reported that one of them was so skilled that he would take a dirham and tap it with his finger, knowing whether it was bad or good. And His saying, 'They know' is a replacement for His saying, 'They do not know.' In this substitution, there is a subtlety that he replaced it with, making it so that it can take its place and suffice for it, to inform you that there is no difference between the lack of knowledge which is ignorance, and the existence of knowledge that does not go beyond the world. And His saying, 'Apparent from the life of this world' indicates that the world has an apparent and a hidden aspect. Its apparent aspect is what the ignorant know of enjoying its adornments and luxuries. And its hidden aspect and reality is that it is a passage to the Hereafter: one should take provisions from it to the Hereafter through obedience and good deeds. In the indefinite article of 'apparent': they know only one apparent aspect from among all its apparent aspects. The second 'they' may be the subject, and 'heedless' is its predicate, and the sentence is the news of the first 'they', or it may be a repetition of the first, and 'heedless' is the news of the first. Regardless of which it is, mentioning it indicates that they are the source of heedlessness about the Hereafter and its abode and knowledge, and that it springs from them and returns to them.