Tafsir Ibn Abbas: Al-An'aam, Ayah 109
Common Words
Other Scholars on This Ayah
Tafsir
They that is the disbelievers of Mecca have sworn by God the most earnest oaths that if there came to them a sign of what they requested they will believe in it. Say to them ‘Signs are only with God’ and He sends them down as and when He wills; I am but a warner. But what will make you realise? how would you know if they have believed if these signs did come to them? In other words you would not know this; truly when they come they will not believe because of what I already know a variant reading for lā yu’minūna ‘they will not believe’ has lā tu’minūna ‘you will not believe’ making the address to the disbelievers; another variant reading has annahā instead of innahā ‘that truly’ as meaning la‘alla ‘that perhaps’ or as governed by the preceding clause la’in jā’athum āyatun ‘if there came to them a sign’.
Ibn Abbas Commentary
(And they swear a solemn oath) an utmost oath, for when one swears by Allah, one swears a solemn oath (by Allah that if there come unto them a portent) as they have asked (they will believe therein) they will believe in that sign. (Say) O Muhammad, to those who sneer and their folk: (Portents are with Allah) the signs come from Allah (and (so is) that which telleth you) and how do you know, O believers (that if such) the signs (came unto them they would not believe) by Allah they will not believe in the sign.