“He made you a liar concerning the Recompense.” He thus takes the man’s lying to consist in his associating partners with Allah and denying the Resurrection. Yet this is the opposite of being a denier. The former interpretation makes him a denier of the Recompense; the latter makes him a liar concerning it. The first is unsound in terms of Arabic usage, and the second is unsound in meaning. For the Recompense is the requital that the disbeliever denied. The disbeliever denied it; he did not himself accuse anyone of lying concerning it.

Furthermore, when referring to someone who conveys a report, it is not established usage to say, “Kadhabtu bihi” (“I lied concerning him”); rather, one says, “Kadhdhabtuhu” (“I declared him a liar”). Moreover, the established meaning of declaring someone a liar is to accuse him of lying, not to cause lying to arise in him. All of this is strained interpretation unknown in the language; established usage is, rather, the opposite. He did not say, “Fa-mā yukadhdhibuk” (“What, then, declares you a liar?”), nor did He say, “Fa-mā kadhdhabak” (“What, then, declared you a liar?”). This is why the scholars of Arabic adopted the first position.

Ibn ʿAtiyya said:

“There is disagreement over who is addressed in His words, ‘What, then, calls you a liar?’ Qatāda, al-Farrāʾ and al-Akhfash said that it is Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Allah said to him: ‘What, then, declares you a liar in what you report about requital and resurrection—which is the Recompense—after this lesson, reflection upon which establishes the truth of what you have said?’”

He said: “According to this interpretation, ‘the religion’ may also encompass the entirety of his revealed law and religion.”