“That is because they preferred the life of this world to the Hereafter, and because Allah does not guide the disbelieving people.”
“Those are the ones whose hearts, hearing, and sight Allah has sealed, and it is they who are heedless.”
“Without doubt, they will be the losers in the Hereafter.”
Allah Most High mentions those who disbelieve in Him after having believed and the punishment He threatens them with in the Hereafter. He then says:
“That is because they preferred the life of this world to the Hereafter.”
He thus makes clear that this is why they deserved the threatened punishment. It is well known that affirmation and denial, knowledge and ignorance, belong to a different category from love and hatred. These people say that they deserved the threatened punishment only because affirmation and faith had departed from their hearts, even if this departure may have resulted from preferring the present life to the Hereafter. Yet Allah, glorified and exalted is He, identifies this preference for the present life over the Hereafter as the fundamental cause of their loss. Such a preference may coexist with knowing and affirming that disbelief brings harm in the Hereafter and that one will have no share therein.
Furthermore, He, glorified is He, exempted those compelled from being counted among the disbelievers. If disbelief could only consist in the heart’s denial and ignorance, He would not have made an exception for those compelled, since it is impossible to compel the heart to deny or be ignorant. It is therefore clear that uttering words of disbelief constitutes disbelief, except under compulsion.
As for His words, Most High:
“But those who open their hearts to disbelief”—
that is, because they prefer the present life to the Hereafter. The Prophet’s words, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, also illustrate this:
“A man will be a believer in the morning and a disbeliever by evening, and a believer in the evening and a disbeliever by morning, selling his religion for some worldly gain.”
The verse was revealed concerning ‘Ammār ibn Yāsir, Bilāl ibn Rabāh, and others like them among the believers