Tafsir of Ibraheem 14:3

{And they obstruct [others] from the way of Allah} (Meaning: they hinder people and prevent them from the religion of Allah the Exalted and faith in Him. It is "the Path" whose state He has clarified. Limiting the attribution to the Majestic Name [Allah]—which encompasses every beautiful attribute—is a requirement of brevity.)

Al-Hasan read it as yasudduna [they turn away] from asadda, which is the transitive form of sadda sududan [to turn away/aversion], meaning to deviate or turn aside. This is not considered eloquent in relation to the other reading, because sadda [the intransitive] provides enough capacity to avoid the forced transitive form, and there is no harm in the canonical reading being more eloquent than others. Among the occurrences of asadda is the saying: "People turned others away by the sword, as streams turn away from the noses of the thirsty." A parallel to this is waqafahu [he stood it up] and awqafahu [he made it stand].

{And they seek it} (Meaning: they seek for it [the path]. The preposition is omitted, and the verb is connected to the pronoun, meaning they demand for it)

{to be crooked} (Meaning: deviation and distortion, for it is the furthest thing from that. This means they say to those they wish to turn away and lead astray from the path: "It is a deviant, skewed, and non-straight path." It is also said that the meaning is: they seek to see within it what would be a crookedness that detracts from it, like the saying of one who cannot reach the grapes [describing them as sour], yet they find no such thing. Both meanings are more appropriate than the claim that it means: they seek for its people to deviate through apostasy.)

The grammatical place of the relative clause alladhina [those who]—assuming these descriptions are connected—is in the genitive case, as an appositive [badal] for "the disbelievers," as has been said. Thus, every one of their attributes is considered in relation to what suits it from the meanings ascribed to "the Path." Disbelief—which signifies veiling—is set against its being a Light; loving the transient worldly life—which clarifies the wretchedness of the outcome—is set against the path's being one whose traversal leads to a praiseworthy outcome; and obstructing others from it is set against its wayfarer being noble.

Al-Hufi and Abu al-Baqa' said: It is an adjective for "the disbelievers." Abu Hayyan rejected this, noting that it separates the adjective from the noun being described with an unrelated element, namely {from a severe punishment}, whether it is in the position of an adjective for "woe" or linked to an omitted term. A parallel to this in terms of adjectival construction would be saying: "The house for Zayd the good one, the Qurashi." This is not permissible because you have separated Zayd from his adjective with an element unrelated to both. The correct construction would be: "The good house for Zayd the Qurashi" or "The house for Zayd the Qurashi, the good one." It is said that if {from a severe punishment} is made the predicate of an omitted subject and the sentence is parenthetical, the separation does not cause harm. But as you see, it is permissible that its place is the accusative [nasb] for condemnation, or the nominative [raf'] for condemnation, by assuming it was originally an adjective and then was made independent, meaning: "They are those who..." Or it may be assumed that it is not that, but rather a subject whose predicate is the saying of the Exalted {Those are in error}.

{...far} On this latter view, it is a new sentence serving as an explanation, emphasizing what is implied by building the judgment upon the relative pronoun. The intent is that they have strayed from the truth and fallen into it by vast distances. The verse contains an exaggeration in describing their error that is not hidden, as the attribute is ascribed to the source [masdar] as a metaphor for its possessor, like the expression "his seriousness became serious." The difference between what we have here and that is that the subject in the former is a source other than the predicate, whereas in the latter it is its own source, and there is no distance between them.

It is also possible to say that what belongs to the person is ascribed to the cause of his being described by what he is described with, based on the fact that distance is in reality an attribute of him, considering the distance of his location from his destination, and the cause of his distance is his error, for had he not strayed, he would not have been distant from it. It is like saying: "His disobedience killed so-and-so," where the attribution is metaphorical, and it contains the aforementioned exaggeration. In Al-Kashshaf, it is stated that it is a metaphorical attribution, and the distance in reality belongs to the one who has strayed, so his act was described with it.

It is also possible that it is meant "in an error possessing distance" or "in it is distance," because the straying person may stray from the path, whether in a near or far location. In Al-Kashf, it was written that the metaphorical attribution is based on making the distance belong to the possessor of the error, because he is the one who moves far away from the path of truth, so his error was described with his attribute as an exaggeration; it is not meant that they are distanced in error or deep within it. As for the statement: "It is possible that it is meant 'in an error of distance,'" then according to this, distance is an attribute of the error in reality, meaning its depth is such that it is a bottomless abyss. And the statement: "Or within it is distance," is based on making the error a location for distance, similar to a place far from the highway. This is the meaning of its distance in itself from the truth due to their contradiction, and to this, there is an allusion in the saying: "Because the straying person may stray in a location, far or near," and the purpose is to clarify the extreme contradiction, and that it is a distance that has no equivalent.

According to all interpretations, the distance is derived from the spatial distance between truth and falsehood or between their people. It is permissible that the saying "possessing distance" or "within it is distance" is a single perspective pointing to the implication between error and distance, not by way of the possessor of the error. However, the first is more preferable for increasing the benefit. Then, the statement of the Exalted {Those are in error}—rather than Him saying "Those are astray in a far error"—is to indicate their firm establishment in it, like the establishment of the contained within the container, and to depict the error encompassing them as the encompassing encompasses the encompassed, and to be a profound metonymy in establishing the attribute—namely, error—according to the mentioned aspects. So understand.