Qatadah said: By “the sinner, the ungrateful disbeliever,” He meant Abu Jahl. When prayer was made obligatory upon the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, Abu Jahl forbade him from it and said, “If I see Muhammad praying, I will surely trample his neck.” (1)
Muqatil said: By “the sinner,” He meant ‘Utbah ibn Rabi‘ah, and by “the ungrateful disbeliever,” al-Walid ibn al-Mughirah. They said to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, “If you have done what you have done for the sake of women and wealth, then turn back from this matter.” ‘Utbah said, “I will marry you to my daughter and bring her to you without a dowry.” Al-Walid said, “I will give you wealth until you are satisfied; so turn back from this matter.” Then Allah revealed this verse. (2)
“And remember the Name of your Lord morning and evening. (25)”
(1) Reported by Abd al-Razzaq, al-Tafsir, 2:339; and al-Tabari, 29:224. In al-Durr al-Manthur, 8:378, al-Suyuti attributes it to Abd ibn Humayd and Ibn al-Mundhir.
(2) Al-Alusi said, 29:165-166: “What is meant by ‘the sinful one’ and ‘the disbeliever’ is their generic class. Linking the prohibition to these two descriptions indicates that they are the reason for it. Thus, the prohibition must concern obeying them in sin and disbelief, not in matters that are neither sinful nor disbelief. The meaning is: do not obey one who commits sin and calls you to it, or one who commits disbelief and calls you to it; that is, do not follow a sinful person when he calls you to sin, nor a disbeliever when he calls you to disbelief. For when it is said, ‘Do not obey the wrongdoer,’ it is understood to mean: do not follow him in wrongdoing when he calls you to it. To deny this understanding is sheer obstinacy. It was also said that ‘the sinful one’ refers to Utbah and ‘the disbeliever’ to al-Walid, but the first view is preferable.” He also said: “Despite prophetic infallibility (ismah), this prohibition guides those who are not infallible to implore Allah and turn to Him in hope that He will preserve them from falling into what is unbecoming.”