Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “And those who do not invoke any deity besides Allah…”

Question:
What is the meaning of the saying of the Truth, Blessed and Exalted is He: His punishment will be doubled for him on the Day of Resurrection, and he will abide therein in humiliation [Al-Furqan: 68-69]?
Is the intent of the verse that a person commits the three major sins and then abides in the Fire? Or is the intent that if one commits any one of these major sins, he abides in the Fire? For example: if one commits the crime of murder, does he abide in the Fire or not? We ask you to please provide a detailed exegesis of this noble verse.

Answer:
This great verse contains a warning against shirk, killing, and zina, and a threat to the perpetrators of these crimes with what Allah mentioned in His saying: [Al-Furqan: 68]. Some of the exegetes said: He will be cast into Hellfire. Others said: The meaning is that it is a great, major sin. He, the Exalted, explained it by His saying: [Al-Furqan: 17]. This is the recompense for one who commits these three crimes: his punishment will be doubled, and he will remain in it forever, humiliated, not honored. And these three crimes differ in rank:
The crime of shirk is the greatest of crimes and the greatest of sins. Its perpetrator will abide in the Fire forever, never to be brought out of the Fire, by the consensus of the scholars. As Allah the Exalted said in His great Book: [At-Tawbah: 17], and He said: [Al-An'am: 88], and He said: [Az-Zumar: 65], and He said regarding them: [Al-Ma'idah: 37]. The verses on this matter are numerous.
So, if a mushrik (one who associates partners with Allah) dies upon his shirk and does not repent, he will abide in the Fire, and Paradise is forbidden to him, and forgiveness is forbidden to him, by the consensus of the Muslims. Allah the Exalted said: [Al-Ma'idah: 72], and He said: [An-Nisa: 48]; thus, He made forgiveness forbidden for the mushrik if he dies upon shirk. As for what is less than shirk, it is under the will of Allah.
In summary: if a mushrik dies upon his shirk, he will abide in the Fire forever, by the consensus of the scholars. This is like one who worships idols, stones, trees, stars, the sun, the moon, or the prophets.
Or one who worships the dead and those they call awliya (close friends of Allah), or calls upon them for aid and seeks their help or support at their graves or far from them. Such as some of them saying: “O my master so-and-so: help, help,” or “O my master al-Badawi: help, help,” or “O my master Abdul Qadir,” or “O my master, the Messenger of Allah: help, rescue, rescue,” or “O my master al-Husayn,” or “O Fatimah,” or “O Lady Zaynab,” or others whom the mushrikin invoke. All of this is major shirk, may Allah protect us from it. If one dies upon it, he becomes one of the people of the Fire, may Allah protect us from it, and will abide therein.
As for the second crime, which is murder, and the third, which is zina, these two crimes are less than shirk. They are the greatest of sins and the most dangerous, provided that the one who commits them does not consider them permissible, but knows that they are forbidden. However, anger, desire, or something else drives him to commit murder, and desire and Shaytan drive him to zina, while he knows that killing without right is forbidden and that zina is forbidden.
The perpetrators of these two crimes are threatened with the mentioned punishment, unless Allah forgives them or bestows upon them sincere repentance before death. Due to the magnitude of these two crimes and the much corruption that results from them, Allah coupled them with the crime of shirk in this verse, and threatened the people of these three crimes with the doubling of punishment and abiding therein; to deter them from it and to warn the servants of its dire consequences.
Other texts from the Book and the Sunnah indicate that murder and zina are less than shirk in the case of one who does not consider them permissible, and that they are included in the saying of Allah the Exalted: [An-Nisa: 48].
As for one who considers them permissible, he is a disbeliever; his ruling is the ruling of the disbelievers regarding abiding in the punishment on the Day of Resurrection, may Allah grant us safety.
As for one who repents from the people of these three crimes and others with sincere repentance, Allah will forgive him and replace his bad deeds with good deeds if he follows the repentance with faith and righteous deeds. As He, Glorified and Exalted is He, said after mentioning these three crimes and the punishment of their perpetrators: [Al-Furqan: 70].
So, Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, forgives the people of sins less than shirk if He wills, or He punishes them in the Fire according to their sins, then brings them out of it by the intercession of the intercessors; such as the intercession of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), the intercession of the angels, the prophets, and the believers.
And there will remain in the Fire a group of the people of tawhid (the oneness of Allah) whom no one’s shafa'ah (intercession) will reach, and Allah will bring them out by His mercy; because they died upon tawhid and faith, but they had evil deeds and sins by which they entered the Fire. When they are purified from them and the period that Allah has decreed for them has passed, they will be brought out of the Fire by the mercy of Allah and thrown into a river called (the River of Life) from the rivers of Paradise; they will grow in it as a seed grows in the flood’s deposit. When their creation is complete, Allah will admit them into Paradise.
And by this it is known: that the sinner, such as the murderer and the one who commits zina, does not abide in the Fire with the abiding of the disbelievers, but he has a specific abiding according to his crime, not like the abiding of the disbelievers.
So, the abiding of shirk is a permanent abiding from which there is no escape and which has no end. As Allah the Exalted said in Surat al-Baqarah regarding the mushrikin: [Al-Baqarah: 168], and He said in Surat al-Ma'idah: They wish to come out of the Fire, but they will not come out of it, and for them is a continuous punishment [Al-Ma'idah: 36-37].
As for those who enter the Fire from among the sinners, they will be brought out of it when the period that Allah has decreed for them is completed, either by the shafa'ah (intercession) of the intercessors, or by the mercy of Allah without the intercession of anyone, as that came in the mutawatir hadiths of intercession from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). For in them it is stated that a group will remain in the Fire who have not been brought out by the intercession of the intercessors, and He, the Exalted, will bring them out of it without the intercession of anyone; because they died upon tawhid. The permanence of those who are made to remain among the sinners in the Fire is a temporary permanence that has an end. The Arabs call long residence permanence, as some of the poets said describing a group: "They resided and became permanent"; meaning: they lengthened their residence.
So, only the people of the Fire will abide in it with a permanent abiding; and they are the disbelievers; so it will be closed over them and they will not come out of it. As He, Glorified and Exalted is He, said: Over them is a Fire closed tight [Al-Balad: 19-20], and He said: In pillars extended [Al-Humazah: 8-9]. We ask Allah for safety and well-being.