This answer is therefore exceedingly weak.

Another group, including Ibn Jarīr and others, answered that “bewitched” here means someone who has been taught sorcery by another. On this interpretation, “bewitched” means “sorcerer,” that is, someone knowledgeable about sorcery.

This would be a sound explanation if the language supported it—that someone taught sorcery could be called “bewitched.” Yet this is scarcely attested in either usage or the language. Rather, “bewitched” describes someone whom another has bewitched, just as matbūb (“bewitched”), madrūb (“struck”), maqtūl (“killed”), and similar forms describe the person subjected to the action. Someone taught sorcery, however, is called a “sorcerer,” meaning that he knows sorcery, even if he has never bewitched anyone. Thus Pharaoh’s people said of Moses, 7:109 “Indeed, this is a learned sorcerer.” Pharaoh accused him of being bewitched, whereas his people accused him of being a sorcerer.

The correct answer, then, is the third: that given by the author of al-Kashshāf and others. “Bewitched” retains its ordinary meaning here: someone bewitched to the point of madness. They called him “bewitched” just as they called him “mad,” meaning that he had lost his reason and did not understand what he was saying. For the bewitched person who should not be followed is someone whose reason has become so impaired that he does not know what he is saying. He is like a madman. Hence they said of him, 44:14 “Taught by others, a madman!” As for someone afflicted physically by an illness of the kind that affects other people, that does not prevent him from being followed. The enemies of the messengers did not accuse them of bodily illnesses. Rather, they made accusations intended to warn the foolish among their people against following them: that they had been bewitched until, like madmen, they no longer knew what they were saying.

Hence Allah, Most High, says:

17:48 “See how they draw comparisons for you! They have gone astray and cannot find a way.”

At one time they likened you to a poet, at another to a sorcerer; at one time to a madman, at another to someone bewitched. In all this they went astray, like someone who, lost and bewildered, searches for a path to follow but cannot find one. Whichever path he takes leads only to further error and bewilderment. He remains confused about his predicament, unable to find a way or follow it.

Such was the conduct of the enemies of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, towards him: they drew comparisons for him from which Allah has declared him free.