“By Allah, it is as though we already see you—dust-covered, fastened together with ropes!” They said this only to spread alarm and to terrify the believers. Mukhshī ibn Ḥumayr replied, “By Allah, I would gladly settle for each of us to be given one hundred lashes, while we keep looking around in fear that Qur’ān might be revealed concerning these very words of yours.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ—so it has reached me—then said to ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, “Catch up with those men, for they have ruined themselves. Ask them what they said; if they deny it, tell them, ‘Yes indeed, you said such-and-such.’” ʿAmmār went after them and conveyed the Prophet’s words. They hurried to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to offer excuses. Wadiʿah ibn Thābit, while the Prophet ﷺ was standing beside his mount and holding its stirrup, kept repeating, “O Messenger of Allah, we were only talking idly and playing.” Mukhshī ibn Ḥumayr added, “O Messenger of Allah, my name and my father’s name have been my undoing.”

The person meant by Allah’s words, “If We pardon a party of you…” ⦗1⦘ in that verse, was indeed Mukhshī ibn Ḥumayr. He was thereafter renamed ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and he prayed to Allah to grant him martyrdom in such a way that no one would know where he lay. He was killed on the day of al-Yamāmah, and no trace of him was ever found.

Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

“Allah informed us that they became disbelievers after having believed, even though they claimed, ‘We uttered words of disbelief without actually believing them; we were only jesting and playing.’ He made clear that scoffing at Allah’s verses is disbelief, and that such speech issues only from a person whose breast has opened up to it; had faith truly been in his heart, it would have prevented him from uttering those words. The Qur’an shows that faith lodged in the heart necessarily entails outward deeds in keeping with it, as in His saying:

‘They say, “We believe in Allah and in the Messenger, and we obey,” then a faction of them turns away after that—such people are not believers. When they are summoned to Allah and His Messenger so that he may judge between them, a group of them turns away. Yet if the right is on their side, they come to him in full submission. Is there disease in their hearts? Or do they doubt? Or do they fear that Allah and His Messenger will wrong them? No—it is they who are the wrongdoers. The only response of the believers, when they are called to Allah and His Messenger so that he may judge between them, is to say, “We hear and we obey”; such are the successful.’ ⦗2⦘

Thus He negated faith from anyone who does not obey the Messenger and stated that when true believers are summoned to Allah and His Messenger for judgment, they hear and obey; thereby He clarified