For if that were so, those who regard the messengers and their followers as bearers of ill omen might affirm that claim.

This is further clarified by the fact that, after saying:

“Whatever good befalls you is from Allah, and whatever evil befalls you is from yourself,”

He then said:

“We have sent you to mankind as a Messenger, and sufficient is Allah as a witness.”

Allah has testified to his messengership through the signs and miracles He manifested at his hands. When Allah testifies for him, He is sufficient as a witness. Their denial of his messengership does not harm him. The specious arguments they advanced count against them, not in their favour: they sought to make their misfortunes and punishments evidence disproving his messengership.

Yet Allah Most High has testified that He sent him to mankind as a Messenger. Concluding the passage with this therefore refutes their claim that calamities come from the Messenger. For this reason, He then said:

“Whoever obeys the Messenger has indeed obeyed Allah. But whoever turns away—We have not sent you as a keeper over them.”

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What Allah has stated also refutes the claim of the Jahmī advocates of compulsion and others like them, who say that Allah may punish His servants without their having committed any sin, and that He may command them to do what does not benefit them, but instead harms them. Thus, if they do what He commands, they suffer harm; and if they do not, He punishes them.