Tafsir of Al-Furqan 25:60

The speaker is the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), or Allah (Mighty and Majestic is He) through the tongue of His Messenger (upon him be peace and prayer). The significance of this noble Name here is not hidden; it contains, as al-Khafaji said, the meaning of "The closest a servant is to his Lord is while he is prostrating."

"They say" — by way of feigned ignorance and insolence — "And what is the Most Merciful?" Just as Pharaoh said, "And what is the Lord of the Worlds?" when Moses (upon him be peace) said to him, "Indeed, I am a messenger from the Lord of the Worlds," even though he knew who He (Mighty and Majestic is He) was, as indicated by the words of Moses (upon him be peace) to him: "You have already come to know that no one has sent these down except the Lord of the heavens and the earth as evidences."

The question may be about the One named. It is posed with mā (what) rather than man (who) because He is, according to their false claim, unknown. It is as one would say to an unseen phantom, "What is it?" and once it is known to be a sentient being, one says, "Who is it?" It is also possible that the question is about the meaning of the Name, in which case the use of mā is obvious.

It has been said: They asked about that because they did not customarily apply it to Allah (Most High) in the same way they applied al-Rahīm (The Merciful), al-Rahūm (The Compassionate), or al-Rāhim (The Merciful One) to Him. Or perhaps they thought that the one intended by it was someone else (Mighty and Majestic is He), for it was common among them to call Musaylimah "The Rahman of Yamamah," so they thought he was the one intended, interpreting the definite article al- as indicating a specific, known entity (al-‘ahd). Others said: Because it was Hebrew, originally Rakhman with a dotted kha, then Arabized, and they had not heard it before.

The most apparent view to me is that it is by way of feigned ignorance and that the question is about the One named. Hence they said, "Should we prostrate to what you order us?" that is, to the One you order us to prostrate to, without us knowing Him. Mā here is a relative noun (mawsūlah), and the resumptive pronoun (‘ā'id) is omitted. The original structure of the sentence containing it is what we have indicated, then it became "you order us to prostrate to Him," then "you order us His prostration" (similar to "I order you to [do] good"), then "you order us of Him" by omitting the genitive construct (mudāf), then "you order us." Considering this gradual omission is the school of Abu al-Hasan, while the school of Sibawayh is that all of it was omitted without gradation. It is also possible that mā is an indefinite noun described by an adjective, with the resumptive pronoun handled as you have heard. It is also permissible for it to be an infinitive particle (masdariyyah) and the lam (in "to what") to be one of causality, with the object of prostration omitted or passed over—meaning: Should we prostrate to Him because of your ordering us?

Ibn Mas’ud, al-Aswad bin Zayd, Hamzah, and al-Kisa’i recited it as ya’muruna (he orders us) with a ya at the beginning, meaning the pronoun refers to the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). This statement is what they said to one another.

"And it increased them" — that is, the command to prostrate to the Most Merciful. The attribution is metaphorical. The clause is conjoined to "they said," meaning: They said that, and it increased them in "aversion" from the faith.

In al-Lubab, it is stated that the subject of "increased them" is the prostration itself, as it is narrated that the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) and his companions (may Allah be pleased with them) prostrated, and they [the disbelievers] distanced themselves from them in mockery. According to this, it is not conjoined to the answer of the conditional "when," but rather to the totality of the conditional and its answer, as has been said regarding "they will not delay" in the words of the Almighty: "When their term comes, they will not delay an hour, nor will they advance it." The first view is superior and more apparent.