Verily there is for you a good example (read iswa or uswa in both instances, meaning qudwa) in [the person of] Abraham, in terms of [his] sayings and deeds, and those who were with him, of believers, when they said to their people, ‘We are indeed innocent of you (bura’ā’ is the plural of barī’, similar [in form] to zarīf, ‘charming’) and of what you worship besides God. We repudiate you, we disavow you, and between us and you there has arisen enmity and hate forever (wa’l-baghdā’u abadan: pronounce both hamzas fully, or replace the second one with a wāw) until you [come to] believe in God alone’, except for Abraham’s saying to his father, ‘I shall ask forgiveness for you — [this statement is] excepted from ‘a [good] example’, so it is not [right] for you to follow his example in this [respect] by asking forgiveness for disbelievers. As for his saying: but I cannot avail you anything against God’ — that is, either against His chastisement or [to secure for you of] His reward — he [Abraham] is using it to intimate [to his father] that he can do nothing for him other than to ask forgiveness [for him], which [saying] is itself based on that [former statement] albeit excepted [from it] in terms of what is meant by it, even if on the face of it, it would seem to be [semantically] part of the [good] example to be followed: Say, ‘Who can avail you anything against God’ [Q. 48:11]; his [Abraham’s] plea of forgiveness for him was before it became evident to him that he [his father] was an enemy of God, as mentioned in sūrat Barā’a [Q. 9:114]. ‘Our Lord, in You we put our trust, and to You we turn [penitently], and to You is the journeying: these are the words of the Friend [of God, Abraham] and those who were with him, in other words, they were saying: