His saying: “And if you desist”—that is, He says to the disbelievers: if you desist from disbelieving in Allah and from fighting His Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, “then that is better for you. But if you return” to waging war against him and fighting him, “We will return” with the like of what befell you on the day of Badr. It is also said: if you return to supplication and seeking a decisive judgment, We shall again grant victory to Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. “And your forces”—that is, your collective body—“will not avail you at all, even if they are numerous; and that Allah is with the believers.”

The people of Medina, Ibn Amir, and Hafs recited “and that Allah” with the hamzah in the accusative case, meaning: because Allah is with the believers, your forces likewise will not avail you at all. It is also said that it is coordinated with His saying: “That is so, and Allah weakens the plot of the disbelievers.” The others recited: “and indeed Allah,” with the initial alif in the genitive case, as an independent clause.

“O you who believe, obey Allah and His Messenger, and do not turn away from him while you hear. And do not be like those who say, ‘We hear,’ while they do not hear. Indeed, the worst of living creatures in the sight of Allah are the deaf and dumb—those who do not understand. Had Allah known any good in them, He would have made them hear. But even if He had made them hear, they would still have turned away in aversion.” (20–23)

His saying, Most High: “O you who believe, obey Allah and His Messenger, and do not turn away from him”—that is, do not turn away from him—“while you hear”: the Quran and its admonitions.

“And do not be like those who say, ‘We hear,’ while they do not hear”: that is, they say with their tongues, “We hear with our ears,” yet they do not truly hear; that is, they neither take admonition nor benefit from what they hear, as though they had not heard it.

His saying, Most High: “Indeed, the worst of living creatures in the sight of Allah”—that is, the worst of all that walks upon the face of the earth among Allah’s creation (1)—“are the deaf and dumb”: deaf and dumb with regard to the truth, so that they neither hear it nor speak it; “those who do not understand”: they do not understand the command of Allah. He called them living creatures because they derive so little benefit from their intellects, as He, Most High, said: “They are like cattle; rather, they are even further astray.” (al-Araf, 7:179)

Ibn Abbas said: They were a group from Banu Abd al-Dar ibn Qusayy. They used to say, “We are deaf, dumb, and blind to what Muhammad has brought.” All of them were killed at Uhud. They were the standard-bearers, and only two of them accepted Islam: Musab ibn Umayr and Suwaybit ibn Harmalah.

146/b “Had Allah known any good in them, He would have made them hear”: that is, He would have enabled them to hear with understanding and acceptance. “But even if He had made them hear,” after He knew that there was no good in them, they would not have benefited from that; “they would still have turned away in aversion,” because of their stubbornness and their rejection of the truth.