6. Al-An'aam

That, Originator Who is without equal, described by all of these attributes, then is God, your Lord. There is no god, in existence, but Him, that is, there is no existent except Him when considering the union; the Creator of all things, when considering the differentiations of His attributes. So single out worship for Him [alone], that is, for the Existence that is qualified by all attributes, Who is God, to the exclusion of what is besides Him. And He is Guardian over all things: in other words, only the Originator of all things is worthy of worship; yet despite that He is Guardian over all, preserving them, governing them and furnishing them with provisions and what is needed so that they might attain the perfection that is attached to them.

Vision cannot perceive Him, that is, it cannot encompass Him, because He is too subtle and majestic for its perception. How can it perceive Him when it cannot perceive its own soul which is but a light from Himḍ Yet He perceives [all] vision, because He encompasses all things and [because of] the subtlety of His perception.

Clear insights have come to you from your Lord, that is, clear signs, being the forms of the self-disclosures of His attributes which are the lights of the insights of the heart, for insight is a light by which the heart perceives, much as eyesight is the light by which they eyes perceive; whoever perceives, that is, [whoever] becomes perceptive by these [insights], then the benefit of his perceptions and guidance is only for his own soul; and whoever is veiled from these [insights], then the hurt of his veiledness does not extend to anyone else, rather to him alone. And I am not a keeper over you, a watcher to watch over you and preserve you from misguidance; rather it is God who is the Keeper, preserving you and preserving your deeds.

Had God willed, they would not have been idolaters: in other words, everything that takes place only occurs by the will of God and there is no doubt that the preparednesses by which they fell into idolatry and the causes of such [error] in the way of the teachings of their parents, habits and otherwise take place also by the will of God, for otherwise these things would not take place. If they believe in that, then it will have been by the guidance of God; if not, then be easy on yourself; and We have not set you as a keeper over them, to preserve them from misguidance, nor are you, appointed as a guardian to make them believe. This does not contradict what He says to them in censure later on, where He says, The idolaters will say, 'Had God willed, we would not have been idolaters [Q. 6:148], because they said that out of obstinacy and as a way of pushing away [the need for] faith by that pretext and not out of conviction. Thus with this statement of theirs, even if it might be true in the same case, they were lying and denying the Messenger. For had they been sincere, then they would have known that the affirmation of Oneness on the part of the believers was also by God's will; such is the case with any set of beliefs (dīn) but without obduracy or enmity towards anyone. Had they known that everything occurs only by the will of God, they would not have remained idolaters. Rather they would have become affirmers of [God's] Oneness. Nay, they said that with the purpose of imputing lies, to be obstinate and to prove that they were incapable of desisting from their idolatry. That is why God censures them with that [statement of theirs] and not because it is not so. For they have not been apprised of God's will and just as He willed that they be idolaters at a previous point in time, so now He does not will that they have faith. It is not that the heart of each one of them has been imprinted [with disbelief]: the proof of this is the faith of some of them. Why can it not be that some of them were prepared for faith and affirmation of the Oneness, yet were veiled by habit and by what they received from their fathers and thus fell into idolatry, but that then when they heard the warning and witnessed the signs of the Oneness, they yearned for the Truth and their veil was lifted and they affirmed [His] Onenessḍ That is why He rebukes them with their own statement and demands of them proof that God had always willed that for them, and warns them with the threat of punishment given to those before them, so that perhaps the one in whom there is a modicum of preparedness, when he has been severed from his [false] argument and has heard the threat of punishment given to deniers before him, his veil might be lifted and his heart might soften and he might believe, all of which would be a facilitation for him [from God] and a graciousness in his case; for the world of wisdom is built upon [such] causality.

They have sworn by God the most earnest oaths that if there came to them a sign, to the end [of the verse]: they demanded that habits [within the natural world] be broken and refused clear proofs, because they were veiled by sense and all that is sensory, which is why the call [made] on the basis of wisdom and confirmation through proof, that works with the intelligent ones who are prepared, was of no use with those. Say, 'Signs, that is, the breaking of the habits [of nature] which they requested belong to the world of power which is only with Him. But what will make you realise, that they will not believe when these [signs] comeḍ In other words, I know better than you do that they will not believe in them. Or [it means] what will make you realise that they will believe if these [signs] were to comeḍ Perhaps if they were to come, they would not believe in them. For in the case of he from whom God does not want belief, He will turn his heart and his eyesight over upon the coming of the sign which he had requested and upon the coming of which he claimed that he would believe, such that he will say, 'This is sorcery!' and will not believe in it just as he did not believe before the coming of the sign. He [God] will then leave him to the manifestation of his soul in its attributes and his veiling of himself therewith; that is why He says [the following] at the end of the second verse [in this narrative]: