2:6 Surely it is the same for those who disbelieve whether thou warnest them or thou warnest them not; they will not have faith.
From the beginning of the surah to this point is an allusion to the Lord's bounty and gentleness with familiars and friends. This verse alludes to His severity and justice toward the strangers and enemies.
God has both bounty and justice. If He acts with justice, that is fitting, and if He is bounteous, that is suitable for Him. But not everything that is fitting in justice is suitable for bounty, whereas everything suitable for bounty is fitting for justice. He calls one to bounty, and the decree is His. He drives another to justice, and the will is His. What is good is that bounty rules over justice, and justice is caught in bounty's hand. Justice is silent before bounty, and the ring of union is in bounty's ear. Do you not see that justice travels along with Him, and happy is he whose refuge is bounty? The fruit of bounty is felicity and triumph, and the result of justice is wretchedness and estrangement. Both are deeds already done. “The Pen has dried on what will be until the Day of Resurrection.” It is a beginningless decree and a work discarded and finished. “When someone's lot has set him down, his eagerness will not stir him up.”
The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, what will come of what You do not want? And when will he come whom you have not called? What does the unplanted get from water? What answer is given to the unworthy? What use to the bitter that sweet water is its neighbor? What gain to the thorn that the rose's fragrance is next to it? The apportioning has gone before, nothing to be added or taken away. What can be done? The Greatest Judge wants it this way. Satan lived in the highest horizon and performed thousands of acts of worship. What profit did it have, for he was not worthy. 'Since approval and wrath are beginningless attributes, there is no profit in shortened sleeves and determined steps.'”
One day ʿUmar Kha??āb came across Iblis. He seized him by the collar and said, “I have been seeking you for a long time. I want to take you home so that the children can play with you.”
Iblis said, “O ʿUmar, have respect for your elders! I worshiped God in the seven heavens, in each heaven for one hundred thousand years. I kept on going up, and I fancied that my going up was an honor and a caress. When I looked closely, the meaning was that the higher I went, the worse and the harder I would fall. O ʿUmar, you did not see my seven hundred thousand years of worship, but I saw you prostrating yourself before an idol.”
ʿUmar let him go, while the tongue of Iblis's state was saying in his abandonment,
“I said, 'My heart wants to be Your comrade,
so I will be worthy of thanks and applause.'
By God, I did not think, O Spirit of the world,
that all my hopes would come to this.”