—meaning, the community of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The evidence for this is His saying, Exalted is He: “so that you may be witnesses over mankind” (al-Baqarah, 143).
“And why should we not believe in Allah and in the truth that has come to us, while we hope that our Lord will admit us among the righteous people?” This was because the Jews reproached them, saying, “Why have you believed?” They answered them with these words: “while we hope that our Lord will admit us among the righteous people”—that is, into the community of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. This is clarified by His saying: “My righteous servants shall inherit the earth” (al-Anbiya, 105).
“And why should we not believe in Allah and in the truth that has come to us, while we hope that our Lord will admit us among the righteous people?” (84) So Allah rewarded them for what they said with gardens beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein forever. That is the reward of those who excel in good. (85) But those who disbelieve and deny Our signs—they are the companions of the Blazing Fire. (86) O you who believe, do not forbid yourselves the wholesome things Allah has made lawful for you, and do not transgress. Indeed, Allah does not love the transgressors. (87)
“So Allah rewarded them”: that is, Allah granted them. “For what they said, gardens beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein forever.” Their statement was made effective, and the reward was connected to their words only because those words were joined with sincerity, as indicated by His saying: “That is the reward of those who excel in good”—meaning, those who affirm Allah’s oneness and believe. His earlier saying, “You see their eyes overflowing with tears because of the truth they have recognized,” shows that sincerity and inward recognition of the heart, together with verbal confession, constitute faith.
His saying, Exalted is He: “O you who believe, do not forbid yourselves the wholesome things Allah has made lawful for you”—the verse. The scholars of Quranic exegesis said: One day, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, admonished the people and described the Day of Resurrection. The people were deeply moved and wept. Then ten of his Companions gathered in the house of Uthman ibn Mazun al-Jumahi: Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Abdullah ibn Masud, Abdullah ibn Umar, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, Salim—the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah—al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad, Salman al-Farisi, and Maqil ibn Muqarrin, may Allah be pleased with them. They consulted one another and agreed to adopt monasticism: to wear coarse woolen garments, castrate themselves, fast perpetually, stand in prayer by night and not sleep on beds, abstain from meat and fat, refrain from women and perfume, and travel through the land. News of this reached the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, so he came to the house of Uthman ibn Mazun but did not find him there. He said to his wife, Umm Hakim bint Abi Umayyah—whose name was Khawla, and who sold perfume: