When Allah Most High mentioned those guided by the Quran, who devote themselves to it, He then mentioned the one who turns away from it and pays it no heed. As punishment for this, every kind of false speech is made a substitute for it: he abandons the loftiest words and the finest discourse, replacing them with the basest and ugliest speech. Hence He said:
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﴿6–9﴾ “Among the people is one who purchases distracting talk to lead others away from the way of Allah without knowledge and makes a mockery of it. Those will have a humiliating punishment. * When Our verses are recited to him, he turns away arrogantly, as though he had not heard them, as though there were deafness in his ears. So give him tidings of a painful punishment. * Indeed, those who believe and do righteous deeds will have Gardens of Bliss, * abiding therein forever. Allah’s promise is true, and He is the Almighty, the All-Wise.”
That is, “Among the people is one who” is deprived and forsaken, and who “purchases”—that is, chooses and desires with the eagerness of someone who pays a price for something—“distracting talk.” This means talk that distracts hearts and turns them away from the noblest pursuit. It includes every kind of forbidden speech, idle talk, falsehood, and senseless babble; words that encourage disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience; the words of those who reject the truth and argue with falsehood in order to refute it; backbiting, tale-bearing, lying, insults, and abuse; singing and the pipes of Satan; and distracting talk about day-to-day happenings that brings no benefit in religion or worldly life.
Such a person purchases distracting talk in place of the discourse of guidance “to lead astray” other people “without knowledge.” After going astray through his own conduct, he leads others astray, for leading others astray arises from being astray oneself.
His misleading others through such talk consists in turning them away from beneficial discourse, beneficial action, evident truth, and the straight path.
He cannot accomplish this without disparaging guidance and truth, making a mockery of Allah’s verses, and ridiculing both them and the one who brought them. Thus, when he combines praising and promoting falsehood with disparaging and mocking the truth and its people, he leads the ignorant astray and deceives them with the words he insinuates to them—words whose true nature the person thus led astray can neither discern nor recognize.
“Those will have a humiliating punishment” because they went astray, led others astray, mocked [Allah’s verses] (1), and denied the evident truth.
Hence He said, “When Our verses are recited to him,” so that he might believe in and submit to them, “he turns away arrogantly.” That is, he turns his back on them with the aversion of one who is arrogant toward and rejects them. They neither enter his heart nor affect him. Rather, he turns away “as though he had not heard them,” indeed, “as though there were deafness in his ears”—that is, a deafness through which sounds cannot reach him. There is no way to bring such a person to guidance.
“So give him tidings”—tidings that cause sorrow and grief to seize his heart and leave his countenance marked by misery, darkness, and dust—“of a painful punishment,” one that causes pain to his heart and body, whose measure cannot be estimated and whose tremendous nature cannot be comprehended. These are the tidings given to evildoers. What wretched tidings they are!
As for the glad tidings given to the people of goodness, He said, “Indeed, those who believe and do righteous deeds”—those who combine inward worship through faith with outward worship through Islam and righteous deeds—
“will have Gardens of Bliss.” This is glad tidings for what they have done and a welcoming feast for what they sent ahead. They will be “abiding therein forever”—that is, in the Gardens of Bliss, enjoying the bliss of the heart, spirit, and body.
“Allah’s promise is true”: it cannot fail, change, or be altered. “And He is the Almighty, the All-Wise,” perfect in might and perfect in wisdom. By His might and wisdom, He grants success to whomever He grants it and forsakes whomever He forsakes, in accordance with what His knowledge and wisdom require concerning them.