by Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, prescribing flogging and blackening of the face, then accept it. “But if you are not given it, then beware.” “Whomever Allah wills to test”—that is, to consign to disbelief and misguidance. Al-Dahhak said: “His destruction”; and Qatadah said: “His punishment.” “You will have no power at all with Allah on his behalf”: that is, you will be unable to repel Allah’s decree concerning him. “Those are the ones whose hearts Allah has not willed to purify.” This refutes those who deny the divine decree. “For them is disgrace in this world”—that is, for the hypocrites and the Jews. The disgrace of the hypocrites is their exposure and the stripping away of their concealment through the disclosure of their hypocrisy; and the disgrace of the Jews is the poll tax, killing, captivity, exile, and their seeing Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and his Companions inflict upon them what they hate. “And for them in the Hereafter is a tremendous punishment”: abiding eternally in the Fire.