“And intercession with Him does not benefit except for one to whom He has given permission. Then, when terror is removed from their hearts, they will say, ‘What has your Lord said?’ They will say, ‘The truth.’ And He is the Most High, the Most Great. (23)”

Allah Most High said: “And he had no authority over them”—that is, We had not given him power over them—“except that We might know who believes in the Hereafter and who is in doubt about it”; that is, except that We might know, see, and distinguish the believer from the disbeliever. What is meant is knowledge of its actual occurrence and manifestation, though it was already known to Him in the unseen. “And your Lord is Guardian over all things”: ever watchful.

“Say,” O Muhammad, to the disbelievers of Mecca, “Call upon those whom you claim” to be gods “besides Allah.” There is an omission in the verse; that is: call upon them to remove the harm that has befallen you during the years of famine. He then described them, saying: “They do not possess even the weight of an atom in the heavens or on the earth”—whether of good or evil, benefit or harm—“nor do they have any share in either of them,” that is, in the heavens and the earth, “nor does He have among them any helper,” meaning any aid.

“And intercession with Him does not benefit except for one to whom Allah has given permission to intercede.” This was said in refutation of them when they declared, “These are our intercessors with Allah.” It is also possible that the meaning is: except for one for whom Allah has given permission that intercession be made. Abu Amr recited