He said: “The correct interpretation is the first.”

Abū Muhammad ibn ‘Atiyya mentioned all three interpretations, but he explained and supported the third without attributing it to anyone else. He said:

“His words, ‘breaking away,’ mean separating and parting. One says that something ‘broke away’ from something else when it became separated from it.”

He said:

“The expression mā infakka (‘has not ceased’), which belongs to the class of auxiliary verbs associated with kāna (‘was’), has no place in this verse. Thus, it is clear here that the description signifies separation.”

He said:

“People differed over what they were separating from. Mujāhid and others said: ‘They would not abandon disbelief and misguidance until the clear proof came to them.’ The future tense in ‘comes to them’ is used in place of the past because the force and magnitude of the Sharia had not yet manifested themselves.

“Al-Farrā’ and others said: ‘They would not abandon their recognition of Muhammad’s prophethood, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and their conviction concerning him until the clear proof came to them; then they became divided.’”

He said:

“Some grammarians understood the preceding negative construction with munfakkīn (‘breaking away’) as belonging to the same class as kāna. The implied predicate is reportedly supplied as ‘knowing the matter of Muhammad,’ or something similar.”

He said:

“There is a third interpretation of the verse, remarkable in its meaning: that the intended meaning is that these people were not free of Allah’s command, His power, and His watch over them, until