When those who were followed disown [their followers]: idh tabarraÌa is a substitution for idh yarawna'l-ʿadhāb, in other words, the moment of their seeing the chastisement is the moment of the followed disowning the followers, both [moments] being concomitants of one another, as required by the love that was between them on account of the chastisement of each [group] by the other and the confinement and veiling of each [group] by the other from each's perfection and pleasures, and the severing of the means and the connection that brought about the benefits and enjoyments that existed between them in this world in the way of kinship, blood ties, intimacy, covenants and all of the other ties of this world that bring about benefit and pleasure. All of these are severed when their concomitants and necessary causes are severed, except for the ties of goodness and the divine loves that are based upon spiritual correspondence and pre-eternal mutual acquaintance: these subsist by the subsistence of the spirit forever and increase in the Hereafter after the lifting of the corporeal veils because they entail the love of God that is profitable in the Hereafter, as God said: 'My love I will surely grant to those who love one another through Me'; and they have seen the chastisement [and the cords are cut away before them]: the 'and' (wāw) is [the particle] of circumstance, in other words, they disown them at the point of seeing the chastisement and [at the moment of] the severing of the connection between them, that is, at the point of the manifestation of the evil of the comparison [between God and their deities], the consequence of that [comparison] and the end of its benefits, being as useful for them [at that point] as the copulation of dogs, for example.
