'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī
تفسير : (but recite unto them) o muhammad (with truth) with the qur'an (the tale of the two sons of adam, how they offered each a sacrifice, and it was accepted from the one) abel (of them and it was not accepted from the other) cain. ((the one)) cain (said) to abel: (i will surely kill thee) o abel. ((the other) answered) why? because allah has accepted your offering and rejected mine. and abel said: (allah accepteth only from those who ward off (evil)) the sincere in their speech and action, whose hearts are pure, and your heart is not pure.
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī
تفسير : and recite, o muhammad (s), to them, your people, the story, the tale, of the two sons of adam, abel and cain, truthfully (bi’l-haqq is semantically connected to utlu, ‘recite’), how they each offered a sacrifice, to god, which in abel’s case was a ram, and in cain’s, some green crops, and it was accepted from one of them, namely, from abel, when a fire came down from the heaven and consumed his offering, and not accepted from the other, that is, from cain, and so he became furious and kept secret his envy until adam left on pilgrimage. he said, to him, ‘i will surely slay you,’, and the other said, ‘why?’, to which the first replied, ‘because only your offering was accepted’. the other said, ‘god accepts only from the god-fearing’.
