the tāghūt; thus “made” is coordinated with “cursed.” What is not meant is: “and He made (1) among them those who worshipped the tāghūt,” as some people have supposed. The wording does not indicate this, nor is such a meaning appropriate. The intent is to censure them for doing so, not merely to state that Allah placed among them people who worship the tāghūt, for merely stating this entails no censure of them (2). This differs from His making some of them apes and swine, for that was His punishment of them for their sins and a disgrace to them (3). He thus censured them with Allah’s curse and His punishing them with the polytheism found among them—namely, worship of the tāghūt. (4).

The Rāfidah likewise bear a measure of Allah’s curse and of His punishment through polytheism, by which they resemble those people in certain respects. It has been established through mass-transmitted reports that some among them are transformed, just as those people were transformed (5). The hadith master Abū Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wāhid [al-Maqdisī] (6) authored a book entitled: “The Prohibition of Reviling the Companions and What Has Been Reported in That Regard in the Way of