harboring secretly—(1) [the opposite of] the rulings applicable to the Muslims who confirm their verbal affirmation with their tongues through the intentions of their hearts, the sincerity of their resolves, and their praiseworthy actions that prove for them the validity of their faith—despite God Almighty's knowledge of their falsehood, His awareness of the malice of their belief, and their doubt regarding what they claimed with their tongues to believe in, (2) to the extent that they thought in the Hereafter, when gathered among those they were numbered with in this world, that they would arrive at their destination and enter where they enter. And God—majestic is His majesty—despite displaying to them the rulings that joined them in the immediate world and the ultimate Hereafter up until the time He distinguishes between them and His allies, and separates them from them—(3) has prepared for them such painful punishment and exemplary torment as He has prepared for the fiercest of His enemies and the worst of His servants, until He separated them from His allies and placed them in the lowest level of His Hellfire—(4) it was known that He, exalted be His praise, through this action toward them—even if it is a recompense for their actions and justice in what He did to them due to their deserving it from Him through their disobedience to Him—was toward them—through what He manifested to them of things: joining their rulings in this world to the rulings of His allies while they were enemies to Him, and gathering them in the Hereafter with the believers while they were disbelievers in Him, until He separated them from them—mocking them, ridiculing them, deceiving them, and scheming against them (5). For the meaning of mocking, ridiculing, scheming, and deceiving is what we have previously described, without its meaning requiring that the mocker be unjust to his companion or unfair to him; rather, that is its meaning in all conditions whenever the characteristics we previously mentioned regarding the meaning of mocking and its equivalents are present.
And according to what we have said regarding it, a report was narrated on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās:
363- Abū Kurayb narrated to us, saying: ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd narrated to us, saying: Bishr ibn ʿUmāra narrated to us, from Abū Rawq, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk, from Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His statement: "God mocks them," He said: He ridicules them to take vengeance upon them (6).
As for those who claimed that the statement of God, exalted be His mention: "God mocks them," is merely by way of response, and that there was no mocking, scheming, or deceiving from God, they negate from God Almighty what God Almighty has affirmed and established for Himself. It is all the same whether someone says: "There was no mocking, scheming, deceiving, or ridiculing from God, exalted be His mention, toward those He informed that He mocks, ridicules, and schemes against," or says: "God did not cause the earth to swallow up those nations He informed that He swallowed up, nor did He drown those of them He informed that He drowned."
And it is said to the one who says that: God, exalted be His praise, informed us that He schemed against a people who passed before us whom we did not see, and He informed us about others that He caused the earth to swallow them up, and about others that He drowned them; so we believed God, exalted be His mention, in what He informed us of concerning that, without differentiating between any of it. What then is your proof for differentiating between what you have differentiated between, in your claim that He drowned and swallowed up those He informed that He drowned and swallowed up, but did not scheme against those He informed that He schemed against?
Then we turn the argument back against him regarding that, for he will not say anything about one of them except that the same will be forced upon him regarding the other.
So if he resorts to saying: "Mocking is absurdity and play, and that is negated regarding God Almighty."
It is said to him: "If the matter according to you is as you described concerning the meaning of mocking, do you not
This translation was produced with AI assistance and is part of an ongoing human-review process. Found a mistake? Use the feedback option in the reader menu. How we translate