Tafsir of Al-Mulk 67:11

That is, their disbelief and their denial of the signs of Allah, Exalted is He, and His warnings.

Meaning: distance them from His mercy, Exalted is He. This is an invocation against them. Abu Ja’far and Al-Kisa’i read it as fasuqan (with a damma on the ha). Al-suhq is absolute distance. Its accusative case is as an emphatic verbal noun (masdar mu’akkid); that is, "May Allah, Exalted is He, distance them a distance." The poet says: He roams the ends of the earth, heading west, and the east wind distances him, every distancer.

It has been said that it is a verbal noun of a transitive verb from the augmented form, by dropping the augmentations, as in his saying: And if I perish, then that was my destiny (qadari)... Meaning: my taqdiri (decreeing). The intended meaning is: "May Allah distance them a distance," i.e., an is-haq (an act of distancing). Or, it is a verb derived from that verbal noun, meaning: "May Allah, Exalted is He, distance them, so they were distanced a distance," as in his saying: And the biting of my time, O son of Marwan, left nothing of the wealth except 'masahat' or 'mujlaf'. Meaning: it did not leave, so nothing remained except masahat (swept away). Abu Ali al-Farisi and Al-Zajjaj leaned toward the first of these two interpretations. As for the establishment of the transitive triliteral verb, as in the verse, Abu Hayyan holds that there is no need for the aforementioned interpretation.

The particle lam in li-ashab (for the companions) is for clarification (tabyin), as in "hayta laka" (come here to you) and "suqyan laka" (a drink for you). In the verse, according to what has been said, there is an inclusion by dominance (taghlib). The perspective of the one who suggests this is that the context requires saying: "So away with them and with the companions of the Blaze." For He, Exalted is He, first explained the state of the devils, where He said: "And We have prepared for them the punishment of the Blaze," then He explained the state of the disbelievers, where He said: "And for those who disbelieved in their Lord is the punishment of Hell." The reading of the accusative—to avoid the appearance of redundancy—suggests that the relative pronoun refers to others besides the devils. Then He said: "So away with the companions of the Blaze." The context required: "So away with them and with the companions of the Blaze." However, it was not said as such due to the taghlib (dominance), whereby He applied "the companions of the Blaze" to the devils and the disbelievers together. It does not invalidate this that other verses indicate that the "companions of the Blaze" are not exclusively the devils; rather, it is applied to all disbelievers. It is sufficient for taghlib that this specific meaning is what is spontaneously understood from the context here, and it does not depend on the impossibility of applying it to others in other places.

Furthermore, it can be said that there is no need to commit to the exclusivity of "companions of the Blaze" to the devils—even according to the context—but it is sufficient for the validity of the interpretation that they (the devils) are the original inhabitants of the Blaze, and the disbelievers are appended to them, as suggested by His saying: "We were not among the companions of the Blaze," meaning among their count and their group. In that case, those entering the Blaze are two categories, and the apparent meaning would necessitate mentioning both in the invocation against them for distance, as the context of the verse testifies. Yet, He deviated and used the dominant term "companions of the Blaze"—which denotes primary status—over the appended ones. It is mentioned that in this dominance there is conciseness (which is obvious) and hyperbole in terms of distancing; for if each group were mentioned separately, one might imagine a disparity between the two distances—that the distancing of the disbelievers is less than the distancing of the devils, as suggested by the devils being original and the others being appended. When they were joined with them in the ruling, it indicated that their distancing did not fall short of the others’. Also, when He, Exalted is He, gave dominance to the "companions of the Blaze"—the devils—over the disbelievers, He treated the disbelievers as if they were of the category of devils, as if they were identical to them. In this, there is a degree of hyperbole that is hidden, as well as an explanation; for the connection of a ruling to a description, and its dependence upon it, suggests that the description is the cause for the ruling. Thus, it implies that the distancing occurred to them because they are "companions of the Blaze."

Others have suggested different interpretations regarding the taghlib and the three aspects mentioned. This has been counted among the difficult problems, becoming a battlefield for the scholars of Rome and other eminent scholars. Perhaps what we have mentioned is closer to understanding and further from conflict and dispute. Ponder this, and Allah, Exalted is He, is the Guardian of understanding.