Tafsir of Al-An'am 6:23

(Then their trial would be nothing except that they said, "By Allah, our Lord, we were not idolaters.")

The original meaning of fitnah (trial/temptation), as established by Al-Raghib, is the act of placing gold into fire to determine its purity from its adulteration. It was then applied to various meanings, such as punishment, testing, tribulation, calamity, disbelief, sin, misguidance, and excuse. There is disagreement regarding the intended meaning here:

Some have said it means shirk (polytheism). Al-Zajjaj chose this view, and ‘Ata reported it from Ibn ‘Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both). It is as if the expression of shirk as fitnah implies that it is something one is tempted by and finds pleasing; they were indeed infatuated with their disbelief, taking pride in it. The speech in this case is either subject to the omission of a genitive (i.e., "the consequence of their fitnah"), or it is a case of equating the consequence of a thing with the thing itself as a rhetorical claim—a construction that is more refined in flavor and further in implication. The limitation (using "nothing except") is either relative to the genus of statements or is a rhetorical claim.

His saying: (By Allah, our Lord, we were not idolaters) is a metonymy for disavowing shirk and the negation of having practiced it as a religion. That is: their shirk had no consequence other than their disavowal of it. Al-Zajjaj noted that this is like seeing a person who loves a deviant, yet when he falls into a destructive predicament, he disavows him. It is said to him, "Your love for so-and-so was nothing but that you disavowed him." This is not a matter of addressing the "sword," nor is it a matter of an omitted genitive—though even if it were, it would still be a fine and subtle meaning known only to those familiar with the speech of the Arabs.

Others said the intended meaning is "excuse." It was used in this sense because, as mentioned previously, it implies purification from adulteration; an excuse purifies one from blame, so it was borrowed for that. This is also reported from Ibn ‘Abbas, Abu ‘Abdullah, Qatadah, and Muhammad bin Ka‘b (may Allah be pleased with them all).

Still others said it means "answering with what is a lie." The basis for this usage is that the answer is the cause of the fitnah, so it is referred to by that term, applying the effect to the cause. It is also possible that it is a metaphor, as the answer also provides an escape for them, just like an excuse.

It is said that the limitation in these two latter views is literal, and the oath sentence is to be taken at its apparent meaning.

• (Takun) with the ta (t) and (Fitnatuhum) in the nominative case (raf’) is the reading of Ibn Kathir, Ibn ‘Amir, and Hafs from ‘Asim.
• Hamza and Al-Kisa’i read (Yakun) with the ya (y) and (Fitnatuhum) in the accusative case (nasb). They likewise read (Rabbana) in the accusative, either as an invocation (nida) or as praise.
• In the non-standard (shadh) readings, it is read (Rabbana) in the nominative, as the predicate of an omitted subject, acting as a preface to the denial of their shirk. Its benefit is to remove the illusion that the denial of shirk is a denial of Divinity regarding Him—Exalted and Sanctified is He.
• The rest read it with the ta and also in the accusative for (Fitnatuhum). They explain the reading of the first group by considering (Fitnatuhum) the subject (ism) of takun, with the verb feminized because it is attributed to a feminine noun, and (An qalu) as its predicate.
• Hamza and Al-Kisa’i read it on the basis that (An qalu) is the subject, and the verb was not feminized because it is attributed to a masculine noun, and (Fitnatuhum) is the predicate.

The reading of the others is similar, except that the feminization there is based on the school of the Kufans; they permit, in the latitude of speech, the feminization of the subject of kana if it is a masculine verbal noun (masdar) and the predicate is a feminine noun placed at the beginning, such as the verse: "And he has indeed failed whose secret was the excuse." They cite this reading as evidence for it. The Basrans, however, held that this is a case of poetic necessity. It is also said that the feminization is based on the meaning of "statement" (maqala), similar to "his book came to me" (ja'athu kitabi), meaning his message. It is not hidden that this is rare in their speech.

Al-Zamakhshari said—and it is reported identically from Abu ‘Ali—that this is of the category of "Whoever your mother was," and this was debated in a way that yields no benefit. Some claimed that the latter two readings are more eloquent than the first because they make the more familiar noun the predicate and the less familiar noun the subject, given that an qalu resembles a pronoun, and pronouns are the most definite of all nouns. This contradicts the common and known usage, and it is subject to scrutiny, for it does not follow that because one thing resembles another in one rule, it resembles it in all rules.

The sentence in all readings is a conjunction to the implied verb that governs "on the day We assemble them," as previously hinted. Several have considered it a conjunction to the sentence before it. The "then" (thumma) is either taken in its literal sense based on the first view, or it denotes a delay in rank based on the latter two views, because their excuse or their answer here is greater than the preceding rebuke.

You should know that there is no necessity to turn away from the apparent meaning, as it is possible that there is a temporal delay. Since that station is overwhelming, one may say that when they witnessed the horror of that day and the King—the Compeller, may His Majesty be glorified—manifested His quality of Majesty upon them (as hinted at by the preceding sentence), they became bewildered and stunned, and they were unable to answer until after a passage of time. Among the things that indicate their bewilderment and confusion is that they lied and swore in their speech. If they were not bewildered and stunned, they would not have said what they said, for truths are revealed on the Day of Resurrection. When the people of that day behold them, and see that nothing is hidden from Him—the Almighty—and that they derive no benefit from such claims, it becomes impossible for such claims to originate from them.

Due to the neglect of basing the matter on bewilderment and confusion, Al-Jubba'i, the judge, and those who agreed with them denied the possibility of lying on the part of the people of the Resurrection, using what we have mentioned as evidence. They answered the verse by saying that the meaning is "we were not idolaters in our belief and our thoughts," because they believed themselves to be monotheists, distant from shirk. They raised an objection against themselves that, on this interpretation, they would be truthful in their report, so why did He—the Almighty—say: ...