He says regarding the words “from their hearts”: “until, when the dread is lifted from their hearts they will ask, ‘What has your Lord said?’ They will answer, ‘The truth; and He is the Most High, the Most Great.’”

With his chain of transmission, in the Tafsīr of al-Walibī, it is related from Ibn ʿAbbās concerning the phrase “the dread is lifted from their hearts”: he said, “It means that the dread is cleared away from their hearts.” The same interpretation is also reported from Ibn ʿUmar, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, al-Shaʿbī, al-Ḍaḥḥāk, al-Ḥasan, Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, and Qatādah.

Aḥmad and others have narrated—from Abū Muʿāwiyah (or ʿAbd al-Raḥmān), from al-Aʿmash, from Masrūq, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd—who said:

“When Allah speaks by way of revelation, the inhabitants of the heavens hear His voice like the rattling of a chain on smooth stone. Because of it they are stunned and fall down in prostration. When they realize that it is revelation, the dread is lifted from their hearts; then it is returned to them, and the dwellers of the heavens call out to one another, ‘What has your Lord said?’ They reply, ‘The truth; and He is the Most High, the Most Great.’” Abū Dāwūd also transmitted this ḥadīth in his Sunan, raising it to the Prophet ﷺ.

What the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the transmitted reports state about what overtakes the angels when they hear revelation—whenever Allah decrees a matter—embraces both what He decrees in creation and destiny and what He decrees in law and command. The scholars have mentioned this state when He speaks the Qur’an and when He decrees events of the universe, some of which are overheard by those who steal a hearing and then convey them to the soothsayers. Such occurrences are far more numerous, for the sending of a human messenger is comparatively rare in relation to them.

The philosophers’ doctrine of intercession is a form of polytheism more grievous than that of others. The Exalted has said:

“It is not for any human being to whom Allah has given the Book, wisdom, and prophethood to say to the people, ‘Be worshippers of me instead of Allah.’ Rather, he will say, ‘Be devoted servants of the Lord because you have been teaching the Book and because you have been studying it.’ Nor would he command you to take the angels and the prophets as lords. Would he command you to disbelief after you have submitted?” (Qur’an 3:79-80)

Thus the Almighty has shown that whoever takes…