Tafsir of An-Nahl 16:103

"And We certainly know that they say..."

By "the human" (al-bashar), they meant a youth who belonged to Huwaytib ibn ‘Abd al-‘Uzza, who had embraced Islam and whose Islam was sincere; his name was ‘A’ish or Ya‘ish, and he was a man of books.

It is also said: He was Jabr, a Roman youth who belonged to ‘Amir ibn al-Hadrami.

It is also said: They were two servants, Jabr and Yasar, who used to make swords in Mecca and read the Torah and the Gospel. When the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) passed by them, he would stop to listen to what they were reading. So they [the polytheists] said: "They are teaching him." One of them was asked about this, and he replied: "Rather, he is the one teaching me."

It is also said: He was Salman al-Farisi.

"The tongue" (al-lisan): The language.

"They deviate" (yulhidun): It is said alhada the grave and lahadahu—he is mulhid and malhud—when he tilts its excavation away from the straight path, digging into one side of it. Then, it was metaphorically applied to every deviation from the straight path. Thus, they say: "So-and-so deviated (alhada) in his speech," and "He deviated in his religion." From this comes the mulhid (heretic/atheist), because he tilted his path away from all religions; he did not tilt it from one religion to another.

The meaning: The tongue of the man to whom they incline their speech—deviating from the straight path—is ‘ajami (non-Arabic/foreign), not clear. "And this" Quran is "a clear Arabic tongue," possessing clarity and eloquence, as a refutation of their claim and an invalidation of their slander.

It is recited: yalhadun (with a fatha on the ya and the ha). In the recitation of al-Hasan: al-lisanu alladhi yalhaduna ilayhi (with the definite article on al-lisan).

If you ask: What is the grammatical position of the sentence: lisanu alladhi yalhaduna ilayhi ‘ajami? I say: It has no grammatical position, because it is an isti’naf (a new, independent sentence) serving as a response to their claim. Similar to this is His saying: "Allah knows best with whom to place His message" (al-An‘am: 124) after His saying: "And when a sign comes to them, they say, 'Never will we believe until we are given like that which was given to the messengers of Allah'" (al-An‘am: 124).

"Indeed, those who do not believe in the verses of Allah - Allah will not guide them, and for them is a painful punishment. They only invent falsehood who do not believe in the verses of Allah, and it is those who are the liars."