And ask them, and ask the Jews. It was also read as 'And ask them.' This question means to affirm and to reprimand them for their ancient disbelief and their transgression of Allah's limits. It indicates that this is among their knowledge which is known only by a Book or revelation. If someone who has not read their Book informs them of it, it is known that it is from the direction of revelation. An example of this is the interrogative particle intended for affirmation in your saying: 'Did you transgress on the Sabbath?' The village is Aila. It was said: Midian. It was said: Tiberias. The Arabs call the city a village. Abu Amr ibn al-Ala said: I have not seen more eloquent villagers than Al-Hasan and Al-Hajjaj, meaning two men from the people of the cities near the sea, riding along its shore when they transgress on the Sabbath, as they exceed Allah's limit in it, which is their fishing on the Sabbath, and they were prohibited from it. It was read: 'They transgress' meaning 'they exceed,' the 't' was assimilated into the 'd' and its movement was transferred to the 'ayn. They are counted from preparation, and they would prepare fishing gear on the Sabbath, while they were commanded not to engage in anything other than worship on that day. The Sabbath: is the source of 'Sabt' among the Jews, when they greatly honored their Sabbath by refraining from fishing and engaging in worship. Its meaning is: they count in honoring this day, likewise the saying 'the day of their Sabbath' means the day they honor the matter of the Sabbath. This is supported by His saying 'and the day they do not rest.' The reading of Umar ibn Abdul Aziz: 'the day of their resting.' It was read: 'they do not rest,' with the 'b' pronounced. And it was read: 'they do not rest' with the 'y' pronounced, from 'asbat.' And from Al-Hasan: 'they do not rest' in the passive form, meaning the Sabbath is not imposed upon them, nor are they commanded to rest. If you say: 'when they transgress,' and 'when it comes to them,' what is their grammatical position? I say: As for the first, it is genitive in place of the village, and the intended meaning of the village is its people, as if it were said: 'Ask them about the people of the village at the time of their transgression on the Sabbath,' and this is a case of substitution of inclusion. It may also be accusative by 'was' or by 'present.' As for the second, it is accusative by 'they transgress.' It may also be a substitute after a substitute. The fish refers to the fish, and most often the Arabs use 'hūt' to mean fish that is visible on the surface of the water. And from Al-Hasan: they appear at their doors as if they were white rams. It is said: 'So-and-so has approached us' if he comes near us and overlooks us. 'I approached him in his house and saw him doing such-and-such.' Likewise, 'We will test them' means we will test them with a similar severe trial because of their disobedience. 'And when she said' is connected to 'when they transgress,' and its grammatical ruling is the same as it. 'A community among them' refers to a group of the people of the village from their righteous ones who rode the difficult and easy in their admonition until they despaired of their acceptance, while others did not cease from admonishing them. 'Why do you admonish a people whom Allah is destroying?' meaning He is cutting them off and purifying the earth of them, 'or punishing them with a severe punishment' for their persistence in evil. They said this because they knew that admonition would not benefit them. They said: 'As an excuse to your Lord,' meaning our admonition is an excuse to Allah, and so we do not incur blame for forbidding the wrong due to some negligence. 'And perhaps they may fear' and we hope that they may attain some fear. It was read: 'an excuse' in the accusative, meaning we admonished them as an excuse to your Lord, or we excused ourselves as an excuse. 'When they forgot' means the people of the village, when they abandoned what the righteous reminded them of, the forgetful person leaves what he forgets. 'We saved those who forbade evil and took the wrongdoers who were riding the wrong.' If you say: 'The community who said 'Why do you admonish' are from which group?' Are they from the saved or the punished? I say:

They are from the group of the saved, because they are from the group of those who forbid. And they did not say what they said except asking about the reason for the admonition and its purpose, since they did not see in it a valid purpose due to their knowledge of the condition of the people. And when the forbidding one knows the condition of the forbidden and that the prohibition does not affect him, the prohibition falls from him. And perhaps it is necessary to abandon it as it enters the realm of futility. Do you not see that if you went to the merchants sitting at the markets and the executioners prepared for torture to admonish them and restrain them from what they are in, that would be futile from you, and would only serve as a cause for distraction? As for the others, they did not turn away from them either because their despair had not become as firm as that of the first ones, and they did not inform them as they informed them, or due to their excessive eagerness and seriousness in their matter, as Allah, glorified and exalted is He, described His Messenger, blessings and peace be upon him, in His saying: 'So perhaps you will kill yourself with grief.' And it is said that the nation are those who are being admonished. When they were admonished, they said to the admonishers: 'Why do you admonish a people whom you claim Allah will destroy or punish?' And Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said: 'Oh, I wish I knew what happened to those who said: Why do you admonish a people?' Al-‘Akrama said: 'I said, may Allah make me a sacrifice for you, do you not see that they disliked what they were upon and opposed them and said: Why do you admonish a people whom Allah will destroy? I kept insisting until I made it clear to him that they had indeed been saved. And from Al-Hasan:

Two groups were saved and one group perished, and they are the ones who took the fish. It is narrated that the Jews were commanded to observe the same day we were commanded to observe, which is Friday. They abandoned it and chose Saturday instead, so they were tested with it and fishing was made forbidden for them on that day. They were commanded to honor it, and the fish would come to them on Saturday, fat and white, as if they were in labor, so abundant that the water could not be seen from their numbers. On the day they did not fish, they did not come to them. They remained in this state for a period of time, then Satan came to them and said: You were only forbidden from taking them on Saturday, so make ponds to drive the fish into on Saturday, and they will not be able to escape from them. You can then take them on Sunday. A man among them caught a fish and tied a thread to its tail and to a piece of wood on the shore, then he grilled it on Sunday. His neighbor smelled the fish and looked into his oven and said to him: I see that Allah will punish you. When he did not see him punished, he caught two fish the following Saturday. When they saw that the punishment did not come quickly, they fished, ate, salted, and sold. They were about seventy thousand. The people of the village became divided into three groups: one third were those who forbade, and they were about twelve thousand; one third said: Why do you admonish a people? And one third were the wrongdoers. When they did not stop, the Muslims said: We will not dwell with you, so they divided the village with a wall: for the Muslims a gate, and for the wrongdoers a gate. And David, peace be upon him, cursed them. One day, the forbidders found themselves in their gatherings and none of the wrongdoers came out. They said: The people have a matter, so they raised the wall and looked, and they saw that they had become monkeys. They opened the gate and entered upon them, and the monkeys recognized their relatives among the humans, while the humans did not recognize their relatives among the monkeys. The monkey would come to its relative and smell its clothes and weep, saying: Did we not forbid you? It would nod its head in affirmation. It was said that the young became monkeys and the old became pigs. Al-Hasan said: By Allah, they ate, or they had a meal that the people of it ate, which was the heaviest of disgrace in this world and the longest of punishment in the Hereafter. By Allah, the fish that a people took and ate is greater in the sight of Allah than killing a Muslim man. But Allah set a deadline, and the hour is more demanding and bitter. It is said: B'uth (بؤس) means to become severe, so it is b'ees (بئيس). It was recited: b'ees, with the weight of hadhir (حَذِر). And b'ees with the softening of the 'ayn and transferring its movement to the fa, as it is said: kabad (كبد) in kabad (كبد). And b'ees with the hamzah turned into a ya, like dhayb (ذئب) in dhayb (ذئب), and b'ees on fi'al, with the hamzah opened and closed. And b'ees, with the weight of rays (ريس), by turning the hamzah of b'ees into a ya and merging the ya into it, and b'ees on the softening of b'ees, like hayin (هين) in hayin (هين). And b'ees on fa'il. When they became arrogant about what they were forbidden from, as in His saying: wa 'atawu 'an amri rabbihim (وَعَتَوْا عَنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّهِمْ), We said to them: Be apes, which is an expression of their transformation into apes, as in His saying: innama amruhu idha arada shay'an an yaqula lahu kun fa-yakoon (إِنَّما أَمْرُهُ إِذا أَرادَ شَيْئاً أَنْ يَقُولَ لَهُ كُنْ فَيَكُونُ). The meaning is that Allah, glorified and exalted is He, punished them first with a severe punishment, then they became arrogant and were transformed. It was said: When they became arrogant, it is a repetition of His saying: falamma nasu (فَلَمَّا نَسُوا), and the disgraceful punishment is the transformation.