Faith: It is the affirmation with trust and tranquility of the soul. And Islam: It is entering into peace. And the exit from being at war with the believers by proclaiming the two testimonies. Do you not see His saying, "And when faith enters your hearts"? Know that what is from the acknowledgment by the tongue without the agreement of the heart is Islam, and what the heart agrees with the tongue is faith. If you say: What is the meaning of His saying, "Say, 'You have not believed,' but say, 'We have submitted'"? What the arrangement of the speech necessitates is to say: Say, 'You did not believe,' but say, 'We have submitted.' Or say, 'You did not believe,' but 'You have submitted'? I say: This arrangement indicates the denial of their claims at first, and refutes what they have claimed. [Mahamud said: "The meaning of this arrangement is the denial of their claims at first... Ahmad said: An example of this arrangement and consideration of this subtlety is His saying, 'When the hypocrites come to you, they say, 'We bear witness that you are indeed the Messenger of Allah.' Then He said, 'And Allah bears witness that the hypocrites are liars.' Since the outcome of this is Allah's denial of them in their testimony of the Messenger's prophethood, He prefaced it with an introduction that summarizes the intent and clears it from the occurrences of doubt and calamities, saying between the two statements, 'And Allah knows that you are His Messenger.' Then He said after that: 'And Allah bears witness that the hypocrites are liars.' Thus it is summarized that they lied in what they claimed of the testimony of their hearts to the truth, because that is the reality of testimony, not that they lied in that the Messenger of Allah is indeed a Messenger from Allah. The clarification of this is His saying, 'And Allah knows that you are His Messenger.' ] Thus it was said: Say, 'You have not believed.' And consideration was given in this type of denial to good manners when He did not explicitly state it, for He did not say: 'You have lied,' and He placed 'You have not believed' which is the negation of what they claimed to establish in its place, then He pointed out what he did by placing it in the position of 'You have lied' in His description of the sincere: 'Those are the truthful,' implying that these are the liars. And sometimes an implication cannot be resisted by a statement. And He sufficed with the phrase 'You have not believed' instead of saying: 'Do not say we have believed,' for it is distasteful to address them with a phrase that implies a prohibition against the statement of faith. Then He connected it with the phrase prefixed with the word of exception carried on the meaning, and did not say: 'But you have submitted,' to be outside the realm of claim and assertion, just as their saying 'We have believed' was. If it had been said: 'But you have submitted,' it would have been an admission of their claim and acknowledgment of their words, which is not to be acknowledged. If you say: His saying, 'And when faith enters your hearts' after His saying, 'Say, 'You have not believed'' resembles repetition without an independent benefit. I say: It is not so, for the benefit of His saying 'You have not believed' is the denial of their claims, and His saying 'And when faith enters your hearts' is a timing for what they were commanded to say, as if it were said to them: 'But say, 'We have submitted'' when the agreement of your hearts with your tongues has not been established, because it is a statement that occurs in the context of the situation of the pronoun in 'Say.' And what is in 'When' implies expectation: indicating that these have believed afterward, it does not diminish you nor oppress you. It is said: 'Alit the sultan his right' is the strongest alit, and it is the language of Ghatafan. And the language of Asad and the people of Hijaz: 'Lita lita.' And Al-Asma'i narrated from Umm Hisham al-Saluliya that she said: 'Praise be to Allah who is not called to account and does not have any faults, nor do sounds affect Him.' [The phrase 'nor do sounds affect Him' if it is from the meaning of being affected, then the meaning is: sounds do not break Him nor make Him deficient. And if it is from the meaning of deafness, then the meaning is: you do not find Him deaf. In the Sahih, 'al-wasam' means a crack and a defect. And in it, 'I found him deaf.'] And it was read in both languages: 'You do not diminish them,' and 'You do not oppress them.' And something similar in meaning is 'No soul is wronged in anything.'

The meaning of obedience to Allah and His Messenger is that they repent from what they were upon of hypocrisy and commit their hearts to faith and act according to its requirements. If they do that, Allah will accept their repentance, grant them His forgiveness, and bestow upon them His great reward. Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that a group from Banu Asad came to Medina in a year of famine. They proclaimed the testimony of faith and corrupted the roads of the city with filth, and they inflated its prices. They would come and go to the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, saying: 'The Arabs have come to you themselves on the backs of their mounts, and we have brought you the burdens and the children,' seeking charity and boasting about it. Then this verse was revealed.