Lit., "thy garments (thiyab) purify": but almost all the classical commentators point out that the noun thawb and its plural thiyab is often metonymically applied to that which a garment encloses, i.e., a person's "body" or, in a wider sense, his "self" or his "heart", or even his "spiritual state" or "conduct" (Taj al-'Arus). Thus, commenting on the above verse, Zamakhshari draws the reader's attention to the well-known idiomatic phrases tahir ath-thiyab (lit., "one who is clean in his garments") and danis ath-thiyab ("one who is filthy in his garments"), and stresses their tropical significance of "free from faults and vices" and "vicious and perfidious", respectively. Razi states with approval that "according to most of the [earlier] commentators, the meaning [of this verse] is, 'purify thy heart of all that is blameworthy'".

Since this is the earliest Qur'anic occurrence of the expression kafir (the above surah having been preceded only by the first five verses of surah {96}, its use here - and, by implication, in the whole of the Qur'an - is obviously determined by the meaning which it had in the speech of the Arabs before the advent of the Prophet Muhammad: in other words, the term kafir cannot be simply equated, as many Muslim theologians of post-classical times and practically all Western translators of the Qur'an have done, with "unbeliever" or "infidel" in the specific, restricted sense of one who rejects the system of doctrine and law promulgated in the Qur'an and amplified by the teachings of the Prophet - but must have a wider, more general meaning. This meaning is easily grasped when we bear in mind that the root verb of the participial noun kafir (and of the infinitive noun kufr) is kafara, "he [or "it"] covered [a thing]": thus, in 57:20 the tiller of the soil is called (without any pejorative implication) kafir, "one who covers", i.e., the sown seed with earth, just as the night is spoken of as having "covered" (kafara) the earth with darkness. In their abstract sense, both the verb and the nouns derived from it have a connotation of "concealing" something that exists or "denying" something that is true. Hence, in the usage of the Qur'an - with the exception of the one instance (in 57:20) where this participial noun signifies a "tiller of the soil" - a kafir is "one who denies [or "refuses to acknowledge"] the truth" in the widest, spiritual sense of this latter term: that is, irrespective of whether it relates to a cognition of the supreme truth - namely, the existence of God - or to a doctrine or ordinance enunciated in the divine writ, or to a self-evident moral proposition, or to an acknowledgment of, and therefore gratitude for, favours received. (Regarding the expression alladhinakafaru, implying conscious intent, see surah {2}, note [6].)

Lit., "for whom I have spread [all] out in a [wide] spread" - i.e., "whom I have endowed with potentialities far beyond those open to other living beings".

In combination with the verb urhiquhu ("I shall constrain him to endure") the term sa'ud (lit., "ascent" or "climb") has the tropical connotation of something extremely difficult, painful or distressing. In the above context, it is an allusion to the loss of all instinctive innocence - and, hence, to the individual and social suffering - which unavoidably follows upon man's wilful neglect of moral and spiritual truths ("God's messages") in this world and bars his spiritual development in the life to come.

I.e., he becomes emotionally involved because he suspects in his heart that his arguments are weak (Razi).

This is unquestionably the earliest instance of the term saqar ("hell-fire"), one of the seven metaphorical names given in the Qur'an to the concept of the suffering in the hereafter which man brings upon himself by sinning and deliberately remaining blind and deaf, in this world, to spiritual truths (cf. surah {15}, note [33]). The allegorical character of this and all other Qur'anic descriptions of man's condition and destiny in the hereafter is clearly alluded to in the subsequent verse as well as in verse {28} ff.

Whereas most of the classical commentators are of the opinion that the "nineteen" are the angels that act as keepers or guardians of hell, Razi advances the view that we may have here a reference to the physical, intellectual and emotional powers within man himself: powers which raise man potentially far above any other creature, but which, if used wrongly, bring about a deterioration of his whole personality and, hence, intense suffering in the life to come. According to Razi, the philosophers (arbab al-hikmah) identify these powers or faculties with, firstly, the seven organic functions of the animal - and therefore also human-body (gravitation, cohesion, repulsion of noxious foreign matter, absorption of beneficent external matter, assimilation of nutrients, growth, and reproduction); secondly, the five "external" or physical senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste); thirdly, the five "internal" or intellectual senses, defined by Ibn Sina - on whom Razi apparently relies - as (1)perception of isolated sence-images, (2)conscious apperceptions of ideas, (3)memory of sense-images, (4)memory of conscious apperceptions; and, lastly, the emotions of desire or aversion (resp. fear or anger), which have their roots in both the "external" and "internal" sense-categories - thus bringing the total of the powers and faculties which preside over man's spiritual fate to nineteen. In their aggregate, it is these powers that confer upon man the ability to think conceptually, and place him, in this respect, even above the angels (cf. 2:30 ff. and the corresponding notes; see also the following note).

This is apparently an allusion to the allegorical character of this passage, which "those who are bent on denying the truth" are unwilling to recognize as such and, hence, fail to grasp its real purport. By speculating on the reasons which allegedly induced Muhammad - whom they regard as the "author" of the Qur'an - to lay stress on one particular number, they tend to take the allegory in a literal sense, thus missing its point entirely.

I.e., in this instance, the half-hearted ones who, despite their ability to discern between right and wrong, incline towards unbelief.

Or: "God lets go astray whomever He wills, and guides aright whomever He wills" (see surah {14}, note [4]). The stress on the allegorical nature of the above passage, spoken of as a "parable" (mathal), has here the same purpose as in 2:26 - namely, to prevent the followers of the Qur'an from attaching a literal meaning to its eschatological descriptions - a purpose that is unmistakably expressed in the concluding sentence of this passage: "All this is but a reminder to mortal man". (See also next note.)

This is the earliest Qur'anic instance of the adjurative particle wa used in the sense of a solemn, oathlike assertion - a calling to witness, as it were - meant (as in the expression "by God!") to give weight to a subsequently stated truth or evidence of the truth: hence, I am rendering it here and elsewhere as "consider". In the present case, the truth thus to be stressed is the implied statement that just as the changing phases of the moon and the alternation of night and day are the outcome of God-given, natural laws, so, too, a sinner's suffering in the hereafter is but a natural outcome of his deliberate wrongdoing in this world. (See also note [7] on 2:7.)

In view of the fact that at the time of the revelation of this very early surah the canonical prayer (salah) had not yet been made obligatory on the followers of the Qur'an, it is reasonable to assume that in the above context this term is used in its widest sense, namely, conscious belief in God.

I.e., with so many people who refuse to listen to the truth.