(24) “Or do they say, ‘He has fabricated a lie against Allah’? If Allah willed, He could seal your heart. Allah wipes out falsehood and establishes the truth by His words. Indeed, He knows well what lies within the hearts.”
That is: Do those who deny the Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him—say, out of sheer audacity and mendacity, “He has fabricated a lie against Allah”? They thus accused you of the most heinous and reprehensible of deeds: fabricating lies against Allah by claiming prophethood and attributing to Allah things of which He is entirely free, even though they know your truthfulness and trustworthiness. How, then, can they dare utter such a blatant lie?
Indeed, by doing so, they have dared to impugn Allah Most High, for their allegation amounts to disparaging Him. According to the necessary implication of their claim, He enabled you to undertake this tremendous call, which supposedly entails the greatest corruption on earth. Allah enabled the Messenger to proclaim the call openly and then attribute it to Him; He moreover supported him with manifest miracles, compelling proofs, decisive victory, and mastery over those who opposed him. Yet Allah Most High is fully able to cut off this call at its very root and source by sealing the heart of the Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him—so that he would understand nothing and no good could enter it. Were his heart sealed, the entire affair would be brought to an end and cut off.
This is therefore conclusive proof of the truth of what the Messenger brought and Allah’s strongest testimony in support of what he said. No testimony could be greater or more momentous. Thus, by His wisdom and mercy and in accordance with His established way, Allah wipes out falsehood and removes it. Though falsehood may at times enjoy a period of ascendancy, its ultimate end is disappearance.
“Allah establishes the truth by His words”: by His creative words, which can neither be altered nor changed; by His true promise; and by His revealed words, which establish the truth He has prescribed, make it firm in people’s hearts, and grant insight to those of understanding. Indeed, one of the ways in which Allah Most High establishes the truth is that He causes falsehood to confront and oppose it. Once falsehood does so, the truth assails it with its proofs and clear evidence. Its light and guidance then shine forth, causing falsehood to vanish and be subdued. Its falsity becomes evident to everyone, while the truth becomes fully manifest to all.
“Indeed, He knows well what lies within the hearts”—that is, everything they contain, the good and evil qualities they possess, and what they conceal without revealing.