Tafsir of Al-Isra 17:100

"Say, 'If you possessed...'"

The particle law (if) is grammatically required to precede verbs, not nouns; therefore, a verb must follow it. In the phrase law antum tamlikūn (If you possessed), the underlying structure is law tamlikūna tamlikūn (If you possessed, you would possess). The verb tamlikūn is elided based on the rule of tafsīr (explication). The attached pronoun (the wāw in tamlikūn) is replaced by the detached pronoun antum because the verb to which it would have attached has been dropped. Thus, antum is the subject of the elided verb, and the explicit tamlikūn serves as its explication. This is the approach required by the science of grammar (iʿrāb).

As for what the science of rhetoric (bayān) requires, it is that antum tamlikūn indicates exclusivity—that it is specifically these people who possess such extreme stinginess. Similar examples include the verse of Ḥātim: "If it were a woman with bracelets who slapped me..." and the verse of al-Mutalammis: "If it were anyone other than my maternal uncles who sought to disparage me..." This is because when the first verb is dropped for the sake of the explicator, the speech appears in the form of a nominal sentence (subject and predicate).

"The mercy of Allah" refers to His provision and all His blessings upon His creation. This description of stinginess has reached a limit that the imagination cannot surpass. It is said that this refers to the people of Mecca who proposed what they proposed—such as springs and rivers—and that if they possessed the treasuries of provision, they would have withheld them.

Qatūran (niggardly) means narrow and stingy.

If you ask: Is an object estimated for la-amsaktum (you would have withheld)? I say: No, because its meaning is "you would have been stingy," derived from calling a stingy person a mumsik (withholder).

"And We certainly gave Moses nine clear signs. So ask the Children of Israel [about] when he came to them and Pharaoh said to him, 'Indeed, I think you, O Moses, are bewitched.'"