Surah Al-Ahzab 33:58
ﲀ ﲁ ﲂ ﲃ ﲄ ﲅ ﲆ ﲇ ﲈ ﲉ ﲊ ﲋ
And those who harm believing men and believing women for [something] other than what they have earned have certainly born upon themselves a slander and manifest sin.
Tafsir of Al-Ahzab 33:58
Tafsir
Mafatih al-Ghayb
Verse range: 33:58
Al-Ahzab (The Confederates): 58
{And those who annoy the believers [men and women] without their having earned it...}
Since Allah Almighty sends blessings upon His Prophet, the annoyance of Allah is inseparable from the annoyance of His Messenger.
For whoever annoys Allah has annoyed the Messenger. Allah clarified to the believers that if you do what you are commanded and send blessings upon the Prophet as He sends blessings upon him, your annoyance will inevitably involve annoying the Messenger. Thus, whoever annoys you sins because your annoyance is an annoyance to the Messenger, just as annoying Me is annoying him.
In summary, since blessings have come from Allah, the angels, the Messenger, and the believers, it has become almost impossible for the annoyance of one of them not to involve the annoyance of another, similar to the state of true friends in friendship.
His statement: {without their having earned it} is a safeguard against enjoining good without excessive harshness. For if someone is flogged one hundred lashes for drinking wine, or forty for playing backgammon, they are also being annoyed without having earned it. However, if someone is flogged for adultery or the prescribed punishment for drinking, they are not being annoyed without having earned it. It can even be argued that they are not being annoyed at all, because that is a rectification of the condition of the person being struck.
His statement: {they have certainly borne slander} (or buhtān). Buhtān is falsehood, and it only occurs in speech. Annoyance can occur without speech. So, if someone annoys a believer by striking them or taking their property, they have not necessarily borne buhtān.
We say: The intended meaning is {And those who annoy the believers [men and women]...} by speech. This is because Allah Almighty intended to show the honor of the believer. When He mentioned that whoever annoys Allah and His Messenger is cursed—and annoying Allah means denying His existence after knowing the proofs of His existence, or associating partners with Him—[He then mentioned] someone who cannot see or hear, or someone who cannot do or know, or someone who is dependent on a creator for their existence. This leads to mentioning the annoyance of the believer by speech.
Based on this, the prophets were specifically mentioned regarding verbal annoyance because it is more general and complete. This is because a person cannot annoy Allah with things that cause Him pain, like striking or taking what He needs; rather, they annoy Him with speech. Also, a poor, absent person cannot be annoyed physically, but they can be annoyed verbally by saying things that reach them and cause them distress.
The second way to answer this is to say that His subsequent statement: {and a manifest sin} is an addition (mustadrak). It is as if He said: they have borne buhtān if the annoyance was by speech, and {a manifest sin} regardless of how the annoyance occurred.
However, Allah specified verbal annoyance because of what we have explained: it is more general, and it is more complete because it reaches the heart. Speech originates from the heart, and the tongue is its evidence, and it enters the heart through the ears, which is its path.