from a journey, prepared food and invited the people, including the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. When he set the food before them, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “I will not eat your food until you testify that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah.”

So Uqbah said, “I testify that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, then ate from his food. Uqbah was a friend of Ubayy ibn Khalaf. When he informed Ubayy ibn Khalaf, Ubayy said to him, “O Uqbah, have you forsaken your religion?” He replied, “No, by Allah, I have not forsaken it. But a man came to me and refused to eat my food unless I gave him the testimony he demanded. I was ashamed for him to leave my house without having eaten, so I gave him the testimony, and he ate.”

Ubayy said, “I will never be pleased with you unless you go to him and spit in his face.” Uqbah did so, whereupon the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Should I meet you outside Mecca, I shall strike your head with the sword.” Uqbah was then executed following the Battle of Badr. As for Ubayy ibn Khalaf, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, killed him with his own hand on the day of Uhud. (1)

Al-Dahhak said: “When Uqbah spat in the face of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, his spittle returned upon his own face, burning his cheeks; its marks remained upon him until he died.” (2)

Al-Sha‘bi (3) said: Uqbah ibn Abi Mu‘ayt was the close friend of Umayyah ibn Khalaf. Uqbah accepted Islam, so Umayyah said, “I will have nothing more to do with you if you have pledged allegiance to Muhammad.” Thus he disbelieved and apostatized, and Allah, exalted is He, revealed: “And on the Day when the wrongdoer will bite upon his hands”—meaning Uqbah ibn Abi Mu‘ayt ibn Abd Shams ibn Manaf—“in remorse and regret for what he had neglected concerning Allah, having ruined himself through disobedience and disbelief in Allah by obeying his close friend, who had turned him away from the way of his Lord.”

Ata said: “He will eat his hands until he reaches his elbows; then they will grow back, and he will eat them again. Whenever his hand grows back, he will eat it, out of regret for what he did.”

“He will say, ‘Oh, would that I had taken a path with the Messenger!’” That is, in this worldly life: would that I had followed Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and taken with him a path to guidance. Abu Amr recited the final first-person suffix in “Would that I had taken” with an a-vowel, whereas the others recited it without a vowel.

“Alas for me! Would that I had not taken so-and-so as a close friend! He certainly led me away from the Reminder after it had come to me. And Satan has ever been a deserter of man.” (28–29)

“Alas for me! Would that I had not taken so-and-so as a close friend!”—meaning Ubayy ibn Khalaf. “He certainly led me away from the Reminder”: that is, from faith and the Quran, “after it had come to me”—that is, after the Reminder had come to me with the Messenger. “And Satan”: every insolent and rebellious one among mankind and the jinn is a Satan; whoever turns people away from the way of Allah is a Satan. “Has ever been a deserter of man”: that is, he abandons him and disavows him when affliction and punishment descend. The ruling of this verse is general, applying to all those who love one another in disobedience to Allah.