God has promised those of you who believe and perform righteous deeds that He will surely make them successors in the earth in place of the disbelievers just as He made those Children of Israel who were before them successors in place of the ruling tyrants the verb may be read as active istakhlafa ‘He made them successors’ or as passive istukhlifa ‘were made successors’ and He will surely establish for them their religion which He has approved for them namely the religion of Islam by making it prevail over all religions and enrich them throughout the land so that they become masters thereof and that He will give them in exchange read wa-la-yubdilannahum or wa-la-yubaddilannahum after their fear of disbelievers security. And God fulfilled His promise to them in the way mentioned and He praises them with His words ‘They worship Me without associating anything with Me’ ya‘budūnanī lā yushrikūna bī shay’an is an independent new sentence standing as a justification for His promise. And whoever is ungrateful after that bestowal of grace from among them whoever is ungrateful for it those they are the immoral. The first to show ingratitude for that grace of God were the murderers of ‘Uthmān b. ‘Affān may God be pleased with him and they began to kill one another henceforth after having been brothers.
