Tafsir of Al-Baqarah 2:284

"And whether you disclose what is in your minds or conceal it, Allah will call you to account for it. Then He will forgive whom He wills and punish whom He wills, and Allah is over all things competent."

"And whether you disclose what is in your minds or conceal it" Meaning: of evil.

"Allah will call you to account for it. Then He will forgive whom He wills" Meaning: for those who deserve forgiveness through repentance for what they have disclosed or concealed.

"And punish whom He wills" Meaning: for those who deserve punishment through persistence [in sin].

This does not include the whispers and internal thoughts of the soul, for it is not within human capacity to be free of them; rather, it refers to what one believes and resolves upon.

It is narrated from Abdullah ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) that he recited this verse and said, "If Allah were to hold us accountable for this, we would surely perish." He then wept until his sobbing was heard. This was mentioned to Ibn Abbas, who said, "May Allah forgive Abu Abd al-Rahman."

The Muslims felt the same distress regarding this as he did, so the verse was revealed: "Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity."

Grammatical Notes:

• "Then He will forgive" (فَيَغْفِرْ) and "punish" (وَيُعَذِّبْ): They are read as majzum (jussive) as a consequence of the conditional clause, and as marfu' (nominative) as if saying "He will forgive and punish."
• If you ask: How is the majzum read? I say: The ra is pronounced clearly, and the ba is assimilated.
• Whoever assimilates the ra into the lam is committing a grave grammatical error. Whoever narrates this from Abu Amr is mistaken twice: once for the grammatical error, and once for attributing to the most knowledgeable of people in Arabic something that implies profound ignorance.
• The cause of such narrations is the lack of precision among narrators, and the cause of that lack of precision is a lack of expertise. Only those skilled in grammar can master such things.
• Al-A'mash read "yaghfir" without the fa, in the majzum state, as a badal (substitutive apposition) for "He will call you to account" (yuhasibkum), similar to the verse: "Whenever you come to us, you will find..."
• The meaning of this badal is the detailing of the general concept of accountability, for the detail is clearer than the summarized. It functions like a badal al-ba'd min al-kull (part-for-whole) or badal al-ishtimal (substitution of inclusion), like saying "I struck Zayd on his head" or "I love Zayd for his intellect." This substitution occurs in verbs just as it does in nouns, as both categories require clarification.