He would lead them astray and nullify their striving. In the same way, He has guaranteed added guidance for the God-fearing who seek His good pleasure, and He has declared that He misguides none but the defiantly sinful—those who break His covenant after it has been ratified. He leads astray only the one who prefers error and chooses it over guidance; then He sets a seal upon that person’s hearing and heart. He turns the heart of anyone who is displeased with His guidance when it comes to him, who does not believe in it, but drives it away and rejects it; so He overturns his mind and sight as a punishment for having spurned what he had verified and recognized.
Exalted is He: had He known any good in those places upon which He passed the verdict of misguidance and misery, He would have granted them understanding and guided them. Yet they are unfit for His favor and unworthy of His honor. He has removed every excuse, established the proofs, and furnished the means to guidance. Thus He misguides only the rebellious sinners and wrongdoers; He sets a seal only upon the hearts of the aggressors; He casts none into tribulation except the hypocrites—because of what they themselves have earned. The rust that envelops the hearts of the unbelievers is precisely their own earning and actions, as He said, “No! Rather, the stain of sin has covered their hearts because of what they used to earn (14)” [al-Muṭaffifīn 83:14]. And regarding His enemies from among the Jews He said, “And their saying, ‘Our hearts are wrapped.’ Rather, Allah has set a seal upon them because of their disbelief” [al-Nisāʾ 4:155].
He has also informed us that He does not misguide anyone whom He has already guided until He first makes clear to him what he must avoid; then—out of his own wretchedness and corrupt nature—he chooses error over guidance, deviation over rectitude, joining forces with his own soul, his devil, and the enemy of his Lord against himself.
As for the “plotting” (makr) He attributes to Himself, it is His requital of those who plot against His allies and His messengers: He counters their evil plotting with His good plotting. Their plotting, therefore, is the vilest of deeds, whereas His plotting is the finest, for it is pure justice and recompense. The same applies to His “deceiving” (khidāʿ); it is a recompense for their deception of His messengers and His friends, and nothing could be more excellent than such deceiving and plotting.
As for the case of a man who “acts with the deeds of the people of Paradise until there remains between him and it…"