Tafsir of Maryam 19:83

"Have you not seen that We have sent the devils upon the disbelievers, inciting them with an incitement?"

We have appointed them and made them companions to them, having authority over them, or exerting their influence upon them, and We have empowered them to lead them astray.

"Inciting them (t-u-zzuhum) with an incitement" means they urge them and stir them toward acts of disobedience with intense agitation, through various types of enticements and whisperings. Indeed, al-azz (inciting), al-hazz (urging), and al-istifzaz (provoking) are synonymous in their implication of intense disturbance.

The sentence "they incite them" is either a circumstantial clause (hal) describing the devils, or it is an independent statement serving as an answer to an implied question arising from the beginning of the discourse, as if it were said: "What do the devils do to them?" It is then answered: "They incite them," and so on.

The intent of the verse is to express the astonishment of the Messenger (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) regarding what the previous noble verses contained, from the words of the Exalted: "And the human says, 'When I have died...'" up to this point. It describes the state of these straying, rebellious, and defiant disbelievers in their various forms of abominations—in their speech, their deeds, their persistence in error, their immersion in misguidance, their excessiveness in obstinacy, and their resolve toward disbelief, without any deterrent to turn them away or any influence to restrain them, and their collective resistance against the truth after it has been made clear and stripped of any ambiguity.

It serves as a reminder that all of this is due to the leading astray and the seduction of the devils, not because there was any deficiency in the delivery [of the message] or any justification for their behavior. It also contains consolation for the Messenger (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). Thus, it acts as a conclusion (tadhil) to those previously mentioned verses. The intent is not to express his astonishment—peace and blessings be upon him—at the mere act of sending the devils upon them, as the linking of the "vision" to that might suggest, but rather [to express astonishment] at the states mentioned regarding them, insofar as they are the effects of the devils' seduction, as indicated by His, the Exalted's, saying: "Inciting them with an incitement."