Tafsir of Al-Mu'minoon 23:99

"Until" (hatta) is inaugural and functions as a limit for an implied content indicated by what precedes it. The estimation is: "I shall not be like the disbelievers whom the devils incite and attend, until, when death comes to one of them, etc." A parallel to this is the poet’s saying: "How amazing! Even Kulaib reviles me." The meaning here is: "All people revile me, even Kulaib," but the clause following "even" (hatta) is omitted. It is also said that this speech refers back to the second instance of "they describe" (yasifun), meaning that "until" is connected to an omitted part indicated by the context, as if it were said: "They will continue in their evil speech and defiance in the presence of the Prophetic mission, until, when death comes to one of them, etc." His saying, "Say, 'My Lord...'" is an intercalated clause emphasizing the instruction indicated by His saying—Exalted is He—"Repel with that which is best," by seeking refuge with Him, the Exalted, from the devils lest they cause him—upon him be peace—to slip from what he was commanded. Others suggest it refers back to the first "they describe" or to "they associate partners," but this is unfounded.

Al-Zamakhshari permitted that it follows His saying, "And they are indeed liars," treating everything from "Allah has not taken any son" to this point as an intercalation intended to verify their falsehood and their deserving of His punishment. However, this is not a sound perspective. From the words of Ibn 'Atiyyah, it is understood that "until" here may be inaugural and not a limit for what precedes it, though Abu Hayyan countered this by stating that when "until" is inaugural, it never dissociates from the sense of being a limit. The manifest view, from which one should not deviate, is that the pronoun "one of them" refers to the disbelievers, and the meaning of "death comes" is the appearance of its signs—that is, the signs of death appeared to one of them, and the states of the Hereafter were manifested to him, regretting what he neglected regarding Allah.

"My Lord, send me back" (99): That is, return me to the world. The plural [in the verb suffix] is for the magnification of the addressee, who is Allah, the Exalted, as in the poet’s saying: "Oh, protect me, O God of Muhammad! If I am not worthy, You are worthy of it," and the saying of another: "If you wish, I would forbid all women besides You, and if you wish, I would not taste cold water." The truth is that magnification is expressed through the pronouns of the speaker, the addressee, and even the third person, as well as nouns; to deny this is invalid. The confusion that Ibn Malik claims here is not to be heeded. It is also said that the plural is used because the address is directed to the angels—peace be upon them—and the speech is based on an implied addition, meaning: "O angels of my Lord, return me." It is also permitted that "My Lord" is an invocation of help to Him, while "return me" is an address to the angels. This is supported by what Ibn Jarir and Ibn al-Mundhir recorded from Ibn Jarir, who said: They claimed that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her): "When the believer sees the angels, they say, 'We shall return you to the abode of the world.' He says: 'To the abode of worries and sorrows? Rather, let me proceed to Allah, the Exalted.' As for the disbeliever, they say to him: 'We will return you,' and he says: 'My Lord, return me.'" Al-Mazini stated: The pronoun was pluralized to indicate repetition, as if he said: "My Lord, return me, return me, return me." Similar to this is the dual pronoun in "Stop, let us weep," and the like.

Al-Khafaji raised an objection to this, arguing that the original would have been, for example, "return, return, return," and it would not have been a plural pronoun; rather, it would be his original composition. If it were a metaphor, what type would it be, how would it indicate the intended meaning, and what would be its correlation? Otherwise, it is baseless. It is a curiosity that its pronoun was a singular, necessarily hidden pronoun, then became a non-singular, necessarily manifest pronoun. He then said: "This doubt has long occupied my mind. What occurred to me is that we have a metaphor other than those mentioned in the sciences of rhetoric. Because it has no correlation to the meaning, it was not mentioned: the substitution of one word for another for a nuance, regardless of its original meaning. This is frequent in pronouns, such as using the genitive or explicit pronoun in place of the nominative hidden pronoun in 'Sufficient is He,' until it became necessary to shift from one attribute to another and from one word to another. What we are dealing with is of this type; it shifted from hidden pronouns to a manifest plural pronoun, necessitating the sufficiency of one of the verb forms, making the indication of the plural pronoun a substitute for repeating the verb in terms of emphasis, without any metaphor." Ibn Jinni has speech in al-Khasa'is that indicates what we have mentioned. So ponder this.

By my life, he has gone very far. Perhaps the closest view is to say that Al-Mazini meant the pronoun was pluralized for magnification by placing the single addressee in the position of a group of addressees. Consequently, the action issuing from him is treated as an action issuing from a group, and from this follows that "return me" (plural) becomes equivalent to "return me, return me, return me." However, applying this to something like "Stop, let us weep" is only possible if one says that the dual pronoun may also be intended for magnification, just as it is intended by the plural pronoun. It has not occurred to me that I have seen this, so let it be investigated and contemplated.