Al-Mu’minun: 33

(And the elite)—meaning the nobles—(of his people)—an explication for them. And His saying, the Exalted, (who disbelieved and denied the meeting of the Hereafter)—that is, meeting what is in it of reckoning, reward, and punishment, or the Resurrection, or the second life—is an adjective for "the elite," brought to disparage them and alert to their excessiveness in disbelief. It is permissible for it to be for the purpose of distinction, if there were among the nobles of that century those who believed.

The reason for placing "(of his people)" before the adjective here, while it was delayed in the previous narrative, is to avoid a long separation between the explication and the explained, had it been brought after the adjective and what is contained within its scope regarding the connective clause. This is alongside the apprehension that it might be misconstrued as being related to the "worldly life," or that it might separate the coordinated conjunction and that which is coordinated to it, had it been brought after the description and before the conjunction. This is what has been said.

It is countered that there is no need to commit to making "who" an adjective for "the elite" and to propose a subtle point for the aforementioned precedence, given the apparent permissibility of making it an adjective for "his people." It is refuted that the motivation for committing to the coordination of His saying, the Exalted, (and We gave them luxury in the worldly life)—that is, We blessed them and expanded upon them in it—is so that it serves as an adjective in meaning to the described being connected by the relative pronoun. Furthermore, it is customary that the description of "the luxurious" applies only to the nobles and not others; the situation is the same if it is not coordinated and is instead made a state (hal) of the pronoun in "they denied."

You know that we do not concede that the convention is restricted to describing only the nobles as the luxurious. Even if we were to concede it, the description of them as such could persist even if the described were made an adjective for his people, by making the sentence "(We gave them luxury)" a state (hal) of "the elite" without an implicit "may" (already), or with it; meaning: The elite said regarding our Messenger, "This is but a human like you," etc., while We were showering them with favors.

Yes, the apparent grammatical construction is the coordination of the sentence "We gave them luxury" to the sentence of the relative clause. However, making it a state (hal) of the pronoun is more eloquent, as it denotes committing an evil act against the One who bestowed good, which is stronger in censure.

The connective "wa" (and) was used in "(And) the elite said" here, whereas it was not used elsewhere—rather, the sentence was brought as an initial, explanatory inception—because what we are dealing with here is a narrative of the discrepancy between the two statements; that is, the statement of the Sender and the statement of those to whom he was sent, not a narrative of a dialogue. Those to whom he was sent said what they said to one another, and the nature of that [context] rejects such an inception. As for there [in the other story], the inception is suitable because it is a narrative of the exchange between the Sender and the sent, and the position of address necessitates that. So it is stated in al-Kashf. However, this does not resolve the root of the question, for one might still ask: Why was the exchange narrated there and the discrepancy between the two statements narrated here, and not the reverse? Something similar is directed at those who explained the mention here and the omission there as stylistic variation (tafannun), by saying: If it were reversed—omitted here and mentioned there—the variation would still be achieved. To me, the secret behind this remains unclear.

As for bringing the "wa" here and the "fa" (so/then) in "So the elite said" in the story of Noah, peace be upon him, it has been said: Perhaps it is because the speech of the elite here did not connect to the speech of their Messenger, unlike the speech of the people of Noah, peace be upon him. And Allah, the Exalted, knows best the realities of affairs.

It is not hidden that their saying, "This is not but..." etc., contains exaggeration in demeaning the status of the Messenger, peace be upon him, and belittling him. May Allah kill them; how ignorant they are! And His saying, the Exalted, (he eats from what you eat of, and he drinks from what you drink of) is a confirmation of equality. The apparent view is that the second "ma" is a relative pronoun, and the pronoun referring back to it is an implicit genitive, deleted along with the preposition because that which precedes it indicates it. The deletion here is like that in the saying: "I passed by the one who I passed by," in fulfilling the conditions. Its beauty here lies in "you drink of" serving as the end of the verse.

In al-Tahrir, al-Farra’ claimed the deletion of the genitive referent along with the preposition in this verse. This is not permissible according to the Basrians. The verse either contains no deletion, or it contains only the deletion of the object; for if "ma" is an infinitive (masdariyyah), it does not require a referent. If it is a relative pronoun, the deleted referent is a pronoun in the accusative case as the object, attached to the verb; the estimation being "what you drink it of." This is a derivation based on the rule of the Basrians, and through it, the eloquence of the balancing of the structure is lost. Furthermore, the first view requires interpreting the infinitive as a passive participle, and after that, it requires forcing to make the meaning sound. The same forcing is needed for the second view, as no one drinks from their specific drink, nor from that which they drink, but rather drinks from another individual of the same genus. Thus, intending the genus is necessary in both views.