Tafsir of Saba' 34:8

The clarification of this is that the apparent meaning of their words indicates a demand to designate one of the two states of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), which were equal in the belief of the speaker at the time of the reporting of resurrection. This necessitates designating one of the two states of the report. The interrogation here is for confirmation, thus it yields the establishment of one of the two states for the report. Undoubtedly, the establishment of one of them does not establish an intermediary [state] unless their mutual exclusivity is considered. Likewise, their mutual exclusivity in conjunction does not establish it; rather, it must be that they are mutually exclusive in their negation. Meaning: his (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) report of resurrection cannot be void of one of the two contradictory matters; therefore, what is intended by the second is that which is contrary and a correlate to the first. It is known that it is not "truth," so "truth" is not merely correspondence to reality, and "falsehood" is not merely the lack of such correspondence (as the majority say), nor is it [defined by] the correspondence of belief or lack thereof (as al-Nazzam says). Thus, they [truth and falsehood] are expressions of correspondence and lack thereof, and the intermediary is established.

It has been responded that the meaning of "(Or is there madness in him?)" is "or has he not invented?" He expressed the lack of invention through "madness," because madness necessitates that there is no invention—as indicated by the transmission of the Imams and the Arabs' usage of "lying" to imply intent, and there is no intent for the insane. Thus, the second [term] is not a correlate to "falsehood," but rather to that which is more specific than it—namely, "invention." Therefore, this is a restriction of the false report, in their claim, into its two types: lying with intent and lying without intent. Even if it were granted that invention means "falsehood" absolutely, the meaning would be: "Does he intend invention—i.e., lying—or does he not intend it, but rather lies without intent due to the madness he possesses?"

It is also said: The meaning is, "Has he invented, or has he not invented, but rather has madness?" The speech of a madman is not a "report" because he has no intent that is considered, nor awareness. Thus, their intention is to restrict him to either a lying report or [something that is] not a report at all. Consequently, a report that is neither true nor false is not established. This has been contested, as is not hidden to one who reviews the books of Ma'ani (semantics).

A discussion remains here: Al-Tibi indicated that the foundation of the argument is that the Am (or) is "conjunctive" (muttasila). He was countered by the view that it is "disjunctive" (munqati'a). Linguistically, because of the difference between what follows the Hamza and what follows the Am; and semantically, because the obstinate disbelievers, when they issued their saying, "Shall we point you to a man who informs you..." by way of conjecture and mockery—ignorant of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and his speech regarding the establishment of the Gathering—followed it up with their saying, "(Has he invented a lie against Allah)," they turned away from it to that which is more eloquent, progressing from the lighter to the heavier, from the attribution of lying to the attribution of madness—and far be it from him, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him! It is as if they said: "Leave the talk of invention, for here is something more momentous, because how can a rational person speak of the creation of a new existence after decay and dust?" Since the reliance was on what came after the diversion—the establishment of madness—the second diversion in the speech of the Truth (Exalted is He) came as a refutation of their saying, a negation of madness from him (the blessings of Allah and His peace be upon him), and an establishment of it within themselves, until the end of what he said. The author of al-Kashshaf did not approve of this, saying that in the speech of al-Kashshaf is an indication that the Am is conjunctive: the benefit of shifting away from the verb in "has madness" is an allusion that the established [state] is that specific branch; it is as if it were said: "Is it from an invention that this amazing lie [comes], or from madness?" The opposition [exists] because the madman has no invention. Thus, the evidence for [the Am being] disjunctive based on the difference between the two correlates is invalid. As for the progression from the conjunctive, it is also [possible] according to what he gestured to in a more subtle way.

You know that the apparent [nature of the] argument requires it to be conjunctive. However, al-Khafaji said: "That the argument is built upon it being conjunctive is not granted," so reflect on this. The apparent meaning of "(Has he invented a lie against Allah, or is there madness in him?)" is from the speech of some of them to others. In al-Bahr, it is suggested that it may be the speech of the listener answering the one who said, "Shall we point you to a man...?" He alternated between two things and did not affirm one of them because of the atrocity in each.