Tafseer of The Believers · Al-Muminoon · 23:92
[He is] Knower of the unseen and the witnessed, so high is He above what they associate [with Him].
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
And His word: عَالِمِ الْغَيْبِ وَالشَّهَادَةِ (the Knower of the unseen and the witnessed) — Allah — exalted is His mention — says: He is the Knower of what is hidden from His creatures, which they do not see and do not perceive, and of what they do see and perceive. This is from Allah nothing other than a notification about these polytheists who said, "Allah has taken a child," and who worshipped deities besides Him — that they are in error and mistaken in their words and deeds. For they say what they say in this matter without any knowledge, but out of ignorance. The Knower of the original and the recent matters, of the present and the absent, is Allah, from Whom nothing is hidden. His notification is therefore the truth and not their notification.
And the word عَالِمِ الْغَيْبِ (Knower of the unseen) stands in the nominative as the beginning of a new sentence, with the meaning: "He is the Knower of the unseen." For this reason His word فَتَعَالَى (and exalted is He) begins with the fāʾ, just as one says: "I passed by your brother, the benefactor, and I treated him well" — here "the benefactor" stands in the nominative if you follow it with "and I treated him well" with the fāʾ, because the meaning of the sentence is then: "I passed by your brother; he is the benefactor, and I treated him well." If, however, the sentence had been put with the wāw and one had said: "and I treated him well," the correct grammar for "the benefactor" would be the genitive as an adjective to "brother." Likewise, if there were فَتَعَالَى (and exalted is He) with a wāw, the correct grammar for عَالِمِ الْغَيْبِ (Knower of the unseen) would be the genitive as an attribute of the name of Allah, and the meaning of the sentence would then be: "Exalted be Allah, the Knower of the unseen and the witnessed, and exalted is He!" — whereby وَتَعَالَى would then be connected with "Exalted be Allah."
The genitive with the fāʾ is, moreover, also possible, for the Arabs sometimes begin a sentence with the fāʾ just as they begin it with the wāw, and with the genitive. Abū ʿAmr read عَالِمِ الْغَيْبِ in this verse in the genitive, while the Qurʾān-scholars of the cities differed from him in that.
The correct reading in this, according to our view, is the nominative, for two reasons: the first is the consensus of the authoritative Qurʾān-scholars (qurrāʾ) about it, and the second is its grammatical correctness in Arabic.
And His word: فَتَعَالَى عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ (exalted is He above what they associate with Him as partners) — Allah — exalted is His mention — says: Allah is exalted and far removed above the association of partners (shirk) by these polytheists (mushrikīn), and above the attributes they ascribe to Him.
