(He thinks that his wealth will have made him immortal)

This is a circumstantial clause or an incipient one. Akhladahu (made him immortal) and khalladahu have the same meaning; that is, he left him immortal, meaning remaining without end, or remaining for a very long time. The speech is a figurative metaphor (isti'arah tamthiliyyah). What is meant is that wealth has extended his hopes and caused him to entertain far-reaching desires. Thus, he performs works—such as constructing buildings, planting trees, digging rivers, and the like—like the work of one who thinks that his wealth will keep him alive.

The use of the explicit noun (wealth) in place of a pronoun is to increase emphasis. Expressing it in the past tense is for hyperbole in the intended meaning. It is also permitted that what is meant is that he truly calculates this due to the extremity of his arrogance and his preoccupation with accumulation and piling up wealth, distracting him from the calamities of the Hereafter that lie ahead. Alternatively, it is because he assumes that life and safety from diseases and disasters revolve around observing outward causes, and that wealth is the axis of their rotation and the obeyed sovereign in their city.

It has been said that the meaning is that he considers wealth to be among the things that grant immortality, without regard to whether this immortality is worldly or in the Hereafter, mentioned or witnessed. The focus is merely on attributing this quality to wealth. The purpose behind this is an insinuation that there is indeed something immortal that a rational person ought to devote himself to, which is striving for the Hereafter; but this is very far-fetched. For this reason, some prominent scholars did not consider this insinuation to be an independent interpretation.

'Isam al-Din claimed that it is possible for the subject of akhladahu (to have made him immortal) to be the one calculating, and its object to be the wealth—meaning: he thinks that he will preserve his wealth forever, and he does not know that it is exposed to accidents or to separation by death, as it is said: "Give tidings to the wealth of the miser of a disaster or an heir." This, by my life, is something that has no firm footing.