(Have ye hope that they be true to you …) [2:75]. Ibn ‘Abbas and Muqatil said: “This was revealed about the seventy men who were chosen by Moses to go with him to Allah, exalted is He. When they went with him to the tryst and heard Allah’s speech, commanding and prohibiting Moses, they returned to their people. As for the true amongst them, they delivered exactly what they had heard. But a group of them said: ‘we heard Allah at the end of His speech say: if you can do these things, then do them; but if you wish, don’t do them and there is no harm upon you’ ”. But most Qur’anic exegetes are of the opinion that it was revealed about those who had changed the verse of stoning [adulterers who are married] and the description of Muhammad, Allah bless him and give him peace.
Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi , trans. Mokrane Guezzou
