So whoever Allah intends to guide, He makes gentle with him. He does not intend to be gentle except with one who has gentleness. He expands his chest for Islam, making him inclined towards it, so that his soul finds comfort in it and he loves to enter it. And whoever He intends to lead astray, He abandons him and leaves him to his own affair. [The saying 'to abandon him and leave him to his own affair' explains misguidance in this way, because the Exalted does not do evil according to the Mu'tazila. However, according to the Ahl al-Sunnah, He does it just as He does good. The same can be said about the phrase 'He prevents him from His gentleness.'] And it is he who has no gentleness, making his chest narrow and constricted, preventing him from His gentleness, until his heart becomes hard and he turns away from accepting the truth, and it becomes closed to him, so that faith does not enter him. It has been read as 'narrow' with both light and heavy pronunciation, and 'constricted' with a kasra, and 'constricted' with a fathah, describing it as a source. As if he is ascending to the sky, as if he is undertaking something impossible, because ascending to the sky is a metaphor for what is impossible and far from ability, and beyond what one can achieve. It has been read: 'he ascends,' and its origin is 'he is ascending.' Abdullah read: 'he is ascending.' And he ascends, from 'to ascend.' Allah makes the abomination, meaning abandonment and prevention of guidance, described by the opposite of what is described by guidance, which is purity. Or he meant the action leading to abomination, which is punishment from turmoil, which is disturbance. And this is the path of your Lord, and this is His way that wisdom and His custom in guidance and misguidance necessitated, straight, just, and continuous. Its position is as a confirmed state, like the saying: 'And it is the truth, confirming them.' For a people who remember the Abode of Peace, the House of Allah, meaning Paradise, He attributed it to Himself in honor of it, or the House of safety from every affliction and distress with their Lord in His protection, as you say: 'For so-and-so, I have a right that is not forgotten,' or a treasure for them that they do not know its essence, as in the saying: 'No soul knows what has been hidden for them of the delight of eyes.' And He is their Guardian, their supporters and beloved ones, or their helper against their enemies, because of what they used to do, or their protector by recompensing them for what they used to do.