He ridicules anyone who turns away from his method and returns to pure monotheism. Many of them tear down mosques while lavishly maintaining tomb-shrines. Is that anything but contempt for Allah, His signs, and His Messenger, coupled with veneration of polytheism (1)? Such behavior is common among the grave-worshippers of our own day.

Mockery itself is of two kinds. The first is explicit derision, the very sort for which the verse was revealed. They say, for instance, “We have never seen the like of these reciters of ours—so gluttonous, so deceitful in speech, and so cowardly in battle,” or similar jibes. One of them may sneer, “Your religion is a fifth-rate faith.” Another quips, “Your religion is nonsensical.” Yet another, on seeing those who command good and forbid evil, says mockingly, “Here come the religious folk!” Countless barbs of this sort—far worse than the words that occasioned the revelation of the verse—could be listed only with great effort.

The second kind is the implicit form, an ocean with no shore: a wink of the eye, sticking out the tongue, drawing out the lip