• “Were it not that you say: ‘ʿUzayr is the son of Allah’”: that is, were it not for the polytheism you commit by attributing offspring to Allah. They made this claim about ʿUzayr because he had memorised the Torah by heart; some also said it was because he was a prophet.

• “You say: ‘Whatever Allah wills and whatever Muhammad wills’”: they countered him by pointing to something found on the tongues of certain Muslims that constitutes minor shirk.

• “You say: ‘the Messiah’”—meaning Jesus, son of Mary (peace be upon him)—

• “…is the son of Allah”: thus you commit shirk by ascribing a child to Allah. They said this about Jesus because he was born to a mother without a father.

• “He praised and extolled Allah”: ḥamd is praise for a voluntary act of beauty, whether a favour or otherwise, while thanāʾ is the repeated articulation of praiseworthy qualities.

• “Such-and-such had kept me from forbidding you”: what restrained him was modesty, as mentioned in the other version, for he had not yet been commanded to censure it.

Overall meaning of the hadith: Al-Tufayl (may Allah be pleased with him) relates that, in a dream, he passed by groups from both previous faith communities and censured them for their shirk in attributing a son to Allah—exalted is He far above that. They retorted by citing a form of minor shirk found in a phrase uttered by some Muslims. When morning came, he told the Prophet ﷺ, who then announced the dream, reproved the people for using that polytheistic expression, and instructed them to speak with words free of any taint of shirk.

Relevance of the hadith to the chapter: It shows that saying, “Whatever Allah wills and whatever Muhammad wills,” and similar phrases, is minor shirk, as previously explained.