Tafsir of As-Sajdah 32:12

{And if you could see, when...}

It is permissible that this is an address to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). Regarding this, there are two aspects:

1. That it implies a wish (tamanni): As if He said, "Would that you could see," similar to the Prophet’s (ﷺ) saying to al-Mughirah: "If you had looked at her." This wish is for the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), just as the hope (la‘alla) was for him in the verse {that they might be guided}, because he had swallowed the bitterness of their enmity and harm. Thus, Allah granted him the wish to see them in that horrific state of shame, disgrace, and sorrow, so that he might rejoice at their plight.
2. That the law (if) is the conditional of impossibility (imtina‘iyyah): Its response is omitted, meaning: "You would have seen a horrific matter," or "You would have seen the worst state imaginable."

It is also permissible that it is an address to everyone, just as you might say: "So-and-so is base; if you honor him, he insults you, and if you do good to him, he does evil to you." You do not intend a specific person; it is as if you said: "If one honors and does good to him."

Both law (if) and idh (when) refer to the past. This is permissible because what is awaited from Allah is equivalent to that which is certain to exist in its realization. The verb nara (we see) is not restricted to a specific time; it is as if it were said: "If the act of seeing were to occur from you," and idh is the adverbial time for it.

{They cry out, saying: "Our Lord, we have seen and we have heard"} They are not aided. This means: "We have seen the truth of Your promise and Your threat, and we have heard from You the confirmation of Your messengers." Or: "We were blind and deaf, but now we have seen and heard."

{So return us} Meaning: a return to the world.

{We would have given every soul its guidance} By way of compulsion and force. But We built the matter upon choice, not necessity. They preferred blindness over guidance, so the word of punishment was justly applied to the blind, not the sighted. Do you not see what He followed it with: {So taste, because you forgot}? He made the tasting of the punishment a result of their action: their forgetting the consequence, their lack of reflection upon it, and their failure to prepare for it.

"Forgetting" here means the opposite of remembering. It means: immersion in desires distracted you and diverted you from remembering the consequence, and caused you to forget it. Then He said: {Indeed, We have forgotten you} as a reciprocal act, meaning: We have recompensed you for your forgetting. It is also said to mean "abandonment," i.e., you abandoned reflection on the consequence, so We abandoned you from mercy. The initiation of the sentence with inna (Indeed) and its noun emphasizes the severity of the retribution against them.

The meaning is: Taste this—that is, the state you are in of bowed heads, disgrace, and sorrow—because of your forgetting the meeting [with Allah]. And taste the eternal punishment in Hell because of the sins and destructive major transgressions you committed.

{Only those believe in Our verses who, when they are reminded by them, fall down in prostration and exalt [Allah] with praise of their Lord, and they are not arrogant. Their sides forsake their beds; they call upon their Lord in fear and hope, and they spend from what We have provided them. And no soul knows what has been hidden for them of comfort for eyes as reward for what they used to do.}