“Devoted solely to Allah, associating no partners with Him. Whoever associates partners with Allah is as though he had fallen from the sky and been snatched away by birds, or swept away by the wind to a distant place.” (31)

“Devoted solely to Allah,” that is, sincere to Him; “associating no partners with Him.” Qatadah said: “In their state of polytheism, they used to perform the pilgrimage and forbid daughters, mothers, and sisters in marriage, and they were called hunafā’ (upright monotheists). Then this was revealed: ‘Devoted solely to Allah, associating no partners with Him’—that is, pilgrims devoted to Allah, Muslims who affirm His oneness. This means that whoever associates partners with Allah cannot be a hanīf (upright monotheist).”

“Whoever associates partners with Allah is as though he had fallen,” that is, fallen, “from the sky” to the earth, “and been snatched away by birds,” that is, the birds seize him and carry him off. Snatching and seizing mean taking something swiftly. The people of Madinah recited it as “so that the birds repeatedly snatch him away,” with the kha’ vowelled with fathah and the ta’ doubled; that is, “they snatch him away.” “Or swept away by the wind,” that is, it carries and takes him away, “to a distant place.”