and that special guidance, although He has called it inspiration, just as He has called it guidance, as in His words:

“As for Thamūd, We guided them, but they preferred blindness to guidance.”

Likewise, His words, “We guided him to the two paths,” have been interpreted to mean: We explained to him the paths of good and evil. This is the general guidance of clarification, shared by all.

Another interpretation is: We guided the believer to the path of good and the disbeliever to the path of evil. According to this interpretation, He has called wickedness guidance, just as those others have called clarification inspiration.

Likewise, His words,

“Indeed, We guided him to the way, whether grateful or ungrateful,”

have been understood as referring to guidance shared by all: He explained to the human being the path he ought to follow and the path he ought not to follow. Another interpretation is that He guided each of the two groups to the path it actually followed, “whether grateful or ungrateful.”

Calling this guidance, however, may be justified on the grounds that it is guidance in a qualified, rather than an unrestricted, sense, as when He says:

“So give them good tidings of a painful punishment,”

and:

“They believe in superstition and false deities.”

And since He “speaks the truth” and “commands justice,” it accords with His speech and command, His knowledge and judgment, just as the Quran and all His other speech do. It is also attributable to Him because He has bestowed a favor upon the servant through His host, the angels.

Of its opposite—error—it is said: This is from Satan and the soul, because Allah neither says it nor commands it, and because the only one who implants it in a person’s heart is