“And Satan will say, when the matter has been decided: ‘Indeed, Allah promised you the true promise, and I promised you but failed you. I had no authority over you except that I called you and you responded to me. So do not blame me, but blame yourselves. I cannot rescue you, nor can you rescue me. Indeed, I disavow your having made me a partner with Allah before. Surely the wrongdoers will have a painful punishment.’” (22)

Allah, Exalted is He, says: “And Satan”—that is, Iblis—“will say, when the matter has been decided,” meaning, when it has been concluded and the people of Paradise have entered Paradise and the people of the Fire have entered the Fire.

Muqatil said: A pulpit will be set up for him in the Fire, which he will ascend. The disbelievers will gather around him, reproaching him, and he will say to them:

“Indeed, Allah promised you the true promise,” and He fulfilled it for you; “and I promised you but failed you.” It is also said that he will tell them: “I told you that there would be no resurrection, no Paradise, and no Fire.” “I had no authority over you”—that is, no power over you. It is also said: I brought you no proof for that to which I called you. “Except that I called you”: this is a disconnected exception, meaning: rather, “I called you and you responded to me. So do not blame me, but blame yourselves,” for responding to and following me without any authority or proof. “I cannot rescue you,” meaning, I cannot aid you; “nor can you rescue me,” meaning, nor can you aid me.

Al-A‘mash and Hamzah recited the word translated “my rescuers” with the possessive yā’ vowelled with a kasrah, whereas the others recited it with a fatḥah because of the doubled consonant. Those who recited it with a kasrah did so because two vowelless letters meet; thus, it was given a kasrah, since the yā’ is akin to the kasrah vowel. The grammarians did not approve of this recitation. It is also said that it was a dialect of Banu Yarbu‘. Its original form was “bimuṣrikhīnayya”; the nūn was omitted because of annexation, and the plural yā’ was assimilated into the possessive yā’. (1)

“Indeed, I disavow your having made me a partner with Allah before”: that is, I disavow your making me a partner in His worship and absolve myself of it.

“Surely the wrongdoers”—that is, the disbelievers—“will have a painful punishment.”

Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah ibn Abi Tawbah informed us; Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Harith informed us; Muhammad ibn Ya‘qub al-Kisa’i informed us; ‘Abdullah ibn Mahmud informed us; Ibrahim ibn ‘Abdullah al-Khallal narrated to us; ‘Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak narrated to us, from Rushdayn ibn Sa‘d, who said: ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Ziyad informed me, from Dukhayn al-Hajari, from ‘Uqbah ibn ‘Amir, may Allah be pleased with him, from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, in the hadith concerning intercession. He cited the hadith and then said: “Jesus, peace be upon him, will say: ‘That is the unlettered Prophet.’ Then they will come to me, and Allah will permit me to rise. From my place there will rise the sweetest fragrance that anyone has ever smelled, until