Tafsir of At-Tawbah 9:96

{They swear to you that you might be pleased with them}

This is a substitution for what preceded it, and the matter sworn upon is omitted due to its obviousness, as has been mentioned previously. That is: they swear by Allah—the Exalted—regarding what they have offered as excuses, so that you may be pleased with them through their swearing, and so that you may continue to treat them as you were treating them before.

{For if you are pleased with them}—according to what they requested—{yet indeed Allah is not pleased with the defiantly disobedient people}. That is, their pleasing you results in no benefit for them, because Allah—the Exalted—is wrathful toward them, and the pleasure of anyone has no effect alongside His wrath—the Exalted.

Some have permitted the interpretation that "pleasure" is a metonym for deception. That is: if they are able to deceive you with false oaths until they please you, they cannot deceive Allah—the Exalted—thereby so that He might be pleased with them, whereby He would not expose their veils or humiliate them. However, this is contrary to the apparent meaning.

The placement of the word "defiantly disobedient" (al-fāsiqīn) in place of their pronoun is to record against them their departure from the obedience that warrants what has befallen them. The intent of the verse is to forbid the addressed ones from being pleased with them and from being deceived by their false excuses in the most eloquent and emphatic manner; for being pleased with one whom Allah is not pleased with is something that could hardly proceed from a believer.

The verse was revealed, according to what has been narrated from Ibn Abbas—may Allah be pleased with them both—regarding Jadd ibn Qays, Mu'attib ibn Qushayr, and their companions among the hypocrites, who were eighty men. When the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—returned to Medina, he commanded the believers not to sit with them and not to speak to them, and they complied. According to Muqatil, it was revealed concerning Abdullah ibn Ubayy, who swore to the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—that he would never stay behind from him again and requested that he be pleased with him, but he—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—did not do so.