وَإِذَا ذُكِرَ ٱللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ ٱشْمَأَزَّتْ قُلُوبُ ٱلَّذِينَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱلْءَاخِرَةِ وَإِذَا ذُكِرَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن دُونِهِۦٓ إِذَا هُمْ يَسْتَبْشِرُونَ
"When God alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who do not believe in the hereafter shrink in revulsion. And when those besides Him are mentioned, at once they are full of cheer."
ٱشْمَأَزَّتْ — a four-letter root, ش-م-أ-ز: to shrink, to feel disgust, to draw back in revulsion. The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.
| What is mentioned | Reaction |
|---|---|
| Allāhu waḥdahū — alone | Ishmaʾazzat — shrinking |
| Alladhīna min dūnih | Yastabshirūn — rejoicing |
What sets it off is not that God is mentioned — but that He is mentioned alone. I record this as my own reading; its ground is the presence of the word waḥdahū in the sentence. And this joins with the reasoning of the third verse: there it was relayed that the intermediaries were counted as "bringing near". The objection is not to God but to being without an intermediary.