Tafsir of Az-Zumar 39:15

"So worship what you will," meaning whatever you wish to worship besides Him, the Almighty and Majestic. This contains an indication of intense wrath against them that is not hidden, as if, when they did not desist from what they were forbidden, they were commanded to do it so that punishment might befall them.

"Say, 'Indeed, the losers,'" meaning those complete in loss, which is the squandering of what they possess and the wasting of what is indispensable, for they have gathered the greatest kinds of loss.

"Are those who have lost themselves and their families" by choosing disbelief for both. Thus, the meaning of "families" is their followers whom they led astray—meaning they wasted themselves and wasted their families, destroying them both.

"On the Day of Resurrection" when they enter the Fire, as they exposed them to eternal punishment and thrust them into a ruin beyond which there is no further ruin. If "on the Day of Resurrection" is kept to its literal meaning, it is because their affair becomes clear therein and the commencement of their loss is realized; this is valid according to what has been said.

It is also said: The "families" refers to followers in an absolute sense, and their loss of them is because, if they were people of the Fire, they have lost themselves, and if they were people of Paradise, they have departed from them with a departure after which there is no return. This is critiqued by the argument that the avoided outcome is the departure of those who, if they were to return, the loser would not benefit from them, and that is inconceivable in the latter case.

It is further said: The "families" refers to what Allah the Exalted prepared for those who enter Paradise from among the special ones; meaning, they lost the families that would have been theirs in Paradise had they believed. Abd al-Razzaq and Abd ibn Humayd recorded from Qatadah that he said: "There is no one except that Allah the Exalted has prepared a family for him in Paradise if he obeys Him." A similar narration is recorded from Mujahid, and it is also narrated from Maymun ibn Mihran, and all of them mentioned this regarding the verse. Ibn al-Mundhir recorded from Ibn Abbas that he also said regarding it: "They lost their families from the people of Paradise, who had been prepared for them had they acted in obedience to Allah the Exalted, so they cheated them out of them." This is what the statement of al-Hasan necessitates, for it is narrated from him that he interpreted the "families" as the Hur al-Ayn (maidens of Paradise). It is not hidden that interpreting the verse in this manner is not free from remoteness.

Regardless, the intent is not merely to define those complete in loss by what has been mentioned, but to clarify that they are the ones addressed by what preceded—either by making the relative pronoun refer to them specifically, or by making it refer to that which they are included in primarily.

And that which is in the saying of the Exalted, "Unquestionably, that is the manifest loss," is a resumption of the sentence, starting it with the particle of alerting (ala). The reference therein is to the distance of the station of that which is pointed to in terms of status, and that due to its greatness, it is like something tangible. The insertion of the separating pronoun (huwa), the definite article on "loss," the use of the form fu'lan (which is more emphatic than fi'l), and describing it as "manifest"—all provide an indication of the perfection of the loss that belongs to them, its hideousness, and that there is no type of loss beyond it, which is not hidden.