66. That is, free yourselves of selfish interests and whims and prejudices and consider this sincerely for the sake of Allah: consider this singly as well as jointly in two and three and four in an objective manner and consider it well and deeply. What after all can be the reason that the person whom you call a madman today was, until yesterday, being looked upon as a very wise man among you? The incident that happened a little before his appointment to Prophethood is well known among you. When after the reconstruction of the Kabah the different clans of the Quraish were going to clash among themselves on the question as to who should place the Black Stone in the wall, you yourselves had unanimously agreed to accept Muhammad (peace be upon him) as the arbitrator, and he had settled the question amicably to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. Now, how is it that you have started calling the same person mad, whose wisdom and sagacity has been thus tested and experienced by your whole nation? What is it if not stubbornness? Do you really mean the same that you say with your tongues?
67. That is, do you call him mad only for this reason? Do you regard someone wise who finds you following the path of ruin and applauds you. Do you regard someone mad who warns you beforehand of the coming of a disaster and shows you the way to safety and well-being?
68. Another meaning of this can be: “I do not ask anything but your well-being: My only recompense is that you should be reformed.” This thing has been expressed at another place thus; “O Prophet, say to them: I do not ask of you any recompense for this: I only ask of the one, who will, to adopt the way of his Lord.” (Surah Al-Furqan, Ayat 57).
69. That is, “The accusers may say whatever they like but Allah knows everything. He is a witness that I am a selfless person. I am not perforating this mission for any selfish motive.”
70. The words yaqdhifu bil-haqq give two meanings:
(1) He inspires me with the knowledge of the truth by revelation. and,
(2) He is making the truth to prevail. He is crushing falsehood by means of the truth.
71. From this verse some people of the modern age have argued thus: According to it the Prophet (peace be upon him) also could go astray: rather used to go astray. That is why Allah has made the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself say: “If I have gone astray, I am myself responsible for this. And I am on right guidance only when my Lord sends down revelation (i.e. verses of the Quran) to me.” By this wrong interpretation these unjust people in fact want to prove that the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) life was, God forbid, a combination of guidance and error, and Allah had made him confess this before the disbelievers lest one should adopt his obedience completely, taking him to be wholly on right guidance. The fact however is that whoever considers the theme in its correct context will know that here the words, if I have gone astray, are not meant to give the meaning that the Prophet (peace be upon him) actually used to go astray, but it means: “If I have gone astray, as you accuse that I have, and my claim to Prophethood and my this invitation to Tauhid are the result of the same deviation, as you seem to imagine, then the burden of my going astray, will be on me alone; you will not be held responsible for it. But if I am on right guidance, as in fact I am, it is because I receive revelation from my Lord, by virtue of which I have obtained the knowledge of the guidance. My Lord is near at hand and is hearing everything. He knows whether I have gone astray or I am on right guidance from Him.”
72. That is, “On the Day of Resurrection, every culprit will be seized in a way as though he lay in hiding close by. As he will try to flee, he will be seized immediately.”
73. “We do believe (now) in it”: “We believe in the message presented by the Messenger in the world.”
74. That is, “They should have believed when they lived in the world; they have come a long way away from it. After having arrived in the next world how can they get a chance to repent and believe?”
75. That is, they used to charge the Messenger (peace be upon him) and the believers with false accusations and used to taunt and mock his message. Sometimes they said he was a sorcerer or a madman; sometimes they ridiculed Tauhid and the concept of the Hereafter; sometimes they invented the story that someone has taught him everything; and sometimes they said that the believers had started following him only on account of folly and ignorance.
76. As a matter of fact, no one adopts shirk and atheism and denial of the Hereafter by conviction, nor can he, for conviction comes from knowledge. And no one has the knowledge that there is no God, or that many others have a share in divine authority, or that there should be no Hereafter. Thus, whoever has adopted these beliefs in the world, has raised a structure on mere conjecture, which has no basis except doubt and suspicion, and this suspicion has led him to sheer error. Consequently, they doubted God’s existence, they doubted the truth of Tauhid, they doubted the coming of the Hereafter; so much so that they made this doubt their faith and did not listen to the Prophets and expended and wasted their entire lifetime indulging in a wrong creed and wrong way of life.