Tafsir of Al-Jinn 72:11

{And among us are the righteous} Among us are the pious and the God-fearing.

{And among us are [others] other than that} Among us are people other than that. The described noun (the people) is omitted, similar to His saying: "And there is none among us except that he has a known position" (37:164). They are those who are moderate in their righteousness, not perfect in it, or perhaps they meant the wicked.

{We were [of] divided ways} This is an explanation of the aforementioned division. It means: we were possessors of divergent and differing paths. Or, we were, in the variance of our states, like different paths. Or, we were upon different paths, as in the saying: Just as the fox trots along the path.

Or, it means: our ways were divided ways, with the omission of the genitive noun (ways) and the replacement of it by the pronoun added to it. The word qudad (divided/split) comes from qadda (to cut), just as qit'a (piece) comes from qata'a (to cut). The paths were described as qudad to indicate the meaning of fragmentation and separation.

{And we have become certain that we will never escape Allah in the earth, nor can we escape Him by flight}