Allah and His enabling grace. Another view is: “I have no power to harm you or to guide you aright; rather, I convey a message from Allah. I have only been sent with it, and possess no authority except that which I have been granted.” “Whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger” and does not believe, “will have the Fire of Hell, abiding therein forever.”

“Until, when they see what they have been promised, they will know whose supporters are weaker and whose numbers are fewer. (24) Say, ‘I do not know whether what you have been promised is near, or whether my Lord has appointed a distant term for it.’ (25) He is the Knower of the unseen, and He discloses His unseen to no one, (26) except to a messenger whom He chooses. Then He dispatches watchers before him and behind him, (27) so that He may know that they have conveyed the messages of their Lord. He encompasses all that is with them, and He has counted everything precisely.” (28)

“Until, when they see what they have been promised”—that is, the punishment on the Day of Resurrection—“they will know,” when the punishment descends, “whose supporters are weaker and whose numbers are fewer”: theirs or those of the believers.

“Say, ‘I do not know’”—that is, I do not know—“whether what you have been promised,” namely the punishment—though it is also said to mean the Resurrection—“is near, or whether my Lord has appointed a distant term for it”: that is, a fixed time and an endpoint whose duration is long. This means that knowledge of the time of the punishment belongs to the unseen, which none knows except Allah.

“The Knower of the unseen” is in the nominative as an attribute of “my Lord.” It is also recited, “Knower of the unseen.” “He discloses”: He does not make known “His unseen to anyone, except to a messenger whom He chooses”—that is, one whom He selects for His message, disclosing to him whatever He wills of the unseen. For the messenger establishes his prophethood through the miraculous sign, by informing people of the unseen.

“Then He dispatches watchers before him and behind him.” Mentioning some directions indicates all of them. That is, He places guards from among the angels before and behind him, protecting him from the devils lest they eavesdrop, and from the jinn lest they hear the revelation and relay it to the soothsayers.

Muqatil and others said: Whenever Allah sent a messenger, Iblis would come to him in the form of an angel and speak to him. So Allah would place angelic guards before and behind him, to protect him and drive away the devils. If a devil came to him in the form of an angel, they would tell him, “He is a devil, so beware of him.” But when an angel came to him, they would say, “This is a messenger from your Lord.” (2)