And Ibn Abī Talhah reported from Ibn ‘Abbās: “Your faults.” Qatādah said: “Your deeds are with Allah.” In a narration transmitted by someone other than ‘Alī: “Your deeds are with Allah.”

“Rather, you are a people being tested”—that is, you are being tested through obedience to Allah and disobedience to Him. Ibn Abī Hātim and others transmitted both reports.

Ibn Ishāq said: “The messengers said, ‘Your ill fortune is with yourselves,’ meaning your deeds.” Thus, they explained “fate” as deeds and their recompense, because those people used to say: “The calamities that have befallen us have only befallen us because of the sins of the messengers and their followers.”

Allah, glorified is He, therefore made clear that their fate—namely, their deeds and their recompense—is with Allah, and is with them. It is with them because their deeds and the recompense decreed for those deeds accompany them, as Allah Most High said:

“And We have bound every person’s fate to his neck.”

It is from Allah because Allah Most High decreed those calamities on account of their deeds. From Him calamities descend upon them as recompense for their deeds, not because of the messengers and their followers. In this connection, it is said that they are recompensed only for their own deeds, not for the deeds of others.

That is why He said in this verse—when the hypocrites, the disbelievers, and those in whose hearts is disease were saying: “What has befallen us is because of what Muhammad has brought—a punishment