“You will surely pass from stage to stage”: one state after another. Ibn Abbas said: “This refers to your Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.” (1)

It has also been said that this refers to the sky, which will change from one colour to another: at one time becoming like oil, and at another like molten metal; at one time it will be split open amidst the clouds, and at another it will be folded up. The other reciters read it with a dammah on the ba', because the meaning relating to people is more fitting, since He had previously mentioned, “As for the one who is given his record in his right hand,” and, “in his left hand,” and afterwards mentioned, “So what is the matter with them that they do not believe?” The meaning is: You will surely pass from one state to another and from one matter to another at the standing-place of Resurrection. That is, their conditions will be transformed, and in the Hereafter they will be in a state other than that in which they had been in this world. Here, “from” means “after.”

Muqatil said: It means death, then life [then death, then life]. (2)

Ata' said: At one time poor, and at another wealthy. Amr ibn Dinar narrated from Ibn Abbas: It means the hardships and terrors of death, then resurrection, then presentation for judgment. Ikrimah said: One state after another: a nursing infant, then a weaned child, then a boy, then a young man, then an old man. Abu Ubaydah said: You will surely follow the ways and conditions of those who came before you.

Abd al-Wahid al-Mulayhi informed us; Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Nu'aymi informed us; Muhammad ibn Yusuf informed us; Muhammad ibn Isma'il narrated to us; Muhammad ibn Abd al-Aziz narrated to us; Abu Amr al-San'ani of Yemen informed us from Zayd ibn Aslam, from Ata' ibn Yasar, from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him: “You will surely follow the ways of those [who came] before you (3), handspan by handspan and cubit by cubit, such that if they entered a lizard’s burrow, you would follow them.” We said, “O Messenger of Allah, the Jews and the Christians?” He said, “Who else?” (4)

“What is the matter with them that they do not believe? (20) And when the Quran is recited to them, they do not prostrate? (21)”

His words, “What is the matter with them that they do not believe?” are a rhetorical question of rebuke.

“And when the Quran is recited to them, they do not prostrate”: al-Kalbi and Muqatil said, “They do not pray.”

Abu Uthman Sa'id ibn Isma'il al-Dabbi informed us; Abu Muhammad Abd al-Jabbar ibn Muhammad al-Jarahi informed us; Abu al-Abbas Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mahbubi narrated to us; Abu Isa al-Tirmidhi narrated to us; Qutaybah narrated to us; Sufyan ibn Uyaynah narrated to us from Ayyub ibn Musa, from Ata' ibn Mina, from Abu Hurayrah, who said: “We prostrated with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him”