His statement in the Quran,

“Guidance for the God-fearing,”

is of this kind. Only those who accept guidance are guided—namely, the God-fearing—not everyone. This does not mean that they were God-fearing before being guided; they may, in fact, have been disbelievers. Yet only those who are God-fearing are guided by it. Whoever fears Allah is guided by the Quran. Knowledge and warning come only through what the Quran commands.

Likewise, His statement,

“To warn whoever is alive,”

refers to warning that takes full effect, for the living person accepts it. Hence He says:

“And that the word may be fulfilled against the disbelievers.”

They did not accept the warning. Similar is His statement:

“You are only a warner to those who fear it.”

The converse is His statement:

“He leads none astray through it except the transgressors.”

That is, everyone who goes astray through it is a transgressor. This censures whoever goes astray through it, since he is a transgressor; it does not mean that he was a transgressor beforehand. Hence Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqās interpreted this verse as referring to the Khawārij and called them “transgressors” because they went astray through the Quran. Whoever goes astray through the Quran is therefore a transgressor.

His statement,

“Indeed, those who disbelieve,”

belongs to this same category. The meaning is: For anyone whose heart He has sealed and over whose hearing and sight He has placed a covering, it makes no difference whether you warn him or not: he will not believe—that is, as long as he remains in that condition.