2:135 They said, "Be Jews, or be Christians, and you'll be guided." Say: No. We follow the faith of Ibrahim (AS), pure and upright, who never set anything up beside God.
2:136 Say: We believe in Allah ﷻ, and in what was revealed to us, and to Ibrahim (AS), Ismail (AS), Ishaq (AS), Yaqub (AS), and the tribes, and in what was given to Musa (AS) and Isa (AS), and to all the prophets from their Lord. We draw no line between any of them. To Him we have surrendered.
2:137 If they come to believe as you believe, they are guided. If they turn away, they have only set themselves against you, and Allah ﷻ will be enough for you against them. He hears all and knows all.
2:138 This is the coloring of Allah ﷻ. And whose coloring is more beautiful than His? Him alone we serve.
2:139 Say: Do you argue with us about Allah ﷻ, when He is our Lord and yours? Our deeds are ours, yours are yours, and we give ourselves to Him with a whole heart.
2:140 Or are you saying that Ibrahim (AS), Ismail (AS), Ishaq (AS), Yaqub (AS), and the tribes were Jews or Christians? Say: Do you know better, or does Allah ﷻ? And who does greater wrong than someone who buries a testimony he holds from God? Allah ﷻ is not unaware of what you do.
2:141 That was a people who have passed on. What they earned is theirs, what you earn is yours, and you will not be questioned about what they did.
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2:135 "They said: turn back as the returned-ones, or stand as the helpers, and you will be led right. Say: rather, the dictated way of Ibrahim, the one veered-aside to the straight, and he was never among the snared-partners."
هُود is ه-و-د, to return, to repent, to incline back (cf. هُدْنَا إِلَيْكَ, 7:156): "the returned-ones." نَصَارَى is ن-ص-ر, to aid, support, give victory (أنصار = helpers): "the supporters." مِلَّة is م-ل-ل, the same root as to dictate for writing (أملِل, 2:282): a way laid down by dictation, an inscribed road, not merely a religion. حَنِيف is ح-ن-ف, to turn the foot inward, to veer aside: one who leans off the common road onto the single straight line. مُشْرِك is ش-ر-ك, to share and partner, and the same root gives شَرَك, the snare: those who share out the One and are tangled in the net of plural attachment.
2:136 "Say: we have entered-safety in Allah ﷻ and in what was brought down to us, and brought down to Ibrahim, Ismail, Ishaq, Yaqub and the spread-out branches, and what was handed to Musa and Isa and to the prophets from their Raising-Master. We cleave no split between any of them, and to Him we are the surrendered-whole."
آمَنَّا is ء-م-ن, to be made safe, to take refuge in trust: belief as entering-security. أَسْبَاط is س-ب-ط, to extend, spread, lie straight (سبط الشعر, lank hair): the stretched-out line of descent, the spread branches. نُفَرِّق is ف-ر-ق, to cleave apart: we drive no fissure between them. مُسْلِم is س-ل-م, to be sound and intact, to hand over whole: not posture but delivery of the self entire, made-sound in the handing-over.
2:137 "So if they enter-safety in the matched-image of what you entered, they are led right. And if they turn the back, they are only on the far lip of the crack. Allah ﷻ will be the full-measure for you against them, and He is the All-Hearing, the Knower-by-marks."
مِثْل is م-ث-ل, the like-form, the matched image (مَثَل = parable, تمثال = statue): belief in the same struck-image, not an approximation. تَوَلَّوْا is و-ل-ي, the body's pivot, whose one root holds both turning-toward as alliance (وَلِيّ) and turning-the-back as abandonment: here, the back presented. شِقَاق is ش-ق-ق, a crack splitting a thing in two, each half on its own side (شِقّ = one half of a fissure): schism as standing on the opposite lip of the rift. يَكْفِي is ك-ف-ي, to be the exact full measure, enough and nothing further needed.
2:138 The pivot. صِبْغَة, ص-ب-غ, dyed-through to saturation, color taken into the fiber, not laid on the face. صِبْغَة is not surface color. The root is saturation-dyeing: cloth submerged until the dye penetrates the fiber, color taken into the structure rather than laid on the face of it. The same root surfaces in 23:20, وَصِبْغٍ لِّلْآكِلِينَ, the oil of the Sinai tree that bread is dipped into and soaks up. ṣibgh is what a thing is plunged into and comes out permeated by. The buried image is immersion-to-saturation, not application.
That fixes the contrast the passage is built on, and it sits in the text itself, not in any occasion-report. The preceding verses stage the claim كُونُوا هُودًا أَوْ نَصَارَىٰ, "be Jews or Christians [and you are guided]," an identity asserted as a worn label. صِبْغَةَ ٱللَّهِ answers a label with a dye. A sectarian badge is surface paint, applied on top, washable, declarative. The ṣibghah of Allah ﷻ is constitutive: the fiber itself takes the color through, and what is dyed-through cannot be rinsed back to bare. Identity by submersion against identity by marking.
Grammar carries the same force. صِبْغَةَ is accusative, governed by an elided verb of clinging or following, or read as continuation of آمَنَّا from 2:136, "we have believed, [taking on] Allah's ﷻ dye." Either reading puts the case in active reception, not description. You are commanded into the dye or you declare yourself already plunged. Then صِبْغَةً in وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ صِبْغَةً is tamyiz, accusative of specification: who is more beautiful in respect of dyeing. أحسن fuses beauty and excellence at ح-س-ن, so the dye is the most beautiful saturation. Color and beauty collapse into one act.
The close shifts root. ع-ب-د in عَـٰبِدُون is not posture-worship. A طريق مُعَبَّد is a road trodden firm, smoothed and made fit by being worked. عبد is to be shaped-through-service, beaten into a usable path. So the motion of the whole verse is two saturations in series: dyed-through by His color, then worked-smooth into His path. Permeated, then made-fit. Neither term is anything laid on a surface.
2:139 "Say: do you drive arguments at us over Allah ﷻ, and He is our Raising-Master and yours? Ours are our labors, yours your labors, and to Him we are the strained-pure."
تُحَاجُّون is ح-ج-ج, to head straight at a target, the same root as حُجّة (a proof one aims to win with) and حَجّ (the heading-toward): pressing arguments at someone like spears driven at a mark. أَعْمَال is ع-م-ل, enacted labor, the worked-thing. مُخْلِص is خ-ل-ص, to come out clear, the metal smelted free of dross (الخلاص = deliverance): devoted with no admixture, single, no alloy in the allegiance.
2:140 "Or do you say Ibrahim, Ismail, Ishaq, Yaqub and the spread-out branches were the returned-ones or the helpers? Say: are you the better-knower, or Allah ﷻ? And who darkens-and-displaces more than one who chokes back a witnessing he holds from Allah ﷻ? And Allah ﷻ is not slack of watch over what you labor."
أَظْلَم is ظ-ل-م, darkness fused with putting a thing out of its place: not abstract wrongdoing but displacing into the dark, setting a fact where it does not belong. كَتَم is ك-ت-م, to stopper and choke a thing back in the throat: the witnessing held down, swallowed. شَهَادَة is ش-ه-د, presence-as-attestation, being-there and bearing it out. غَافِل is غ-ف-ل, the unwatched gap, attention gone slack: negated here, nothing slips the watch.
2:141 "That was a fronting-body now emptied away. To it what its hand drew in, to you what your hand drew in. You will not be asked for account of what they were laboring."
أُمَّة is ء-م-م, a body gathered toward one front and source (umm = origin): the collective moving as one head, distinct from milla, the laid-down way. خَلَتْ is خ-ل-و, to go empty, vacant, passed and cleared: the ancestral body drawn down to void. كَسَبَتْ is ك-س-ب, what the hand draws in by labor, gain pulled toward oneself: distinct from عمل, the worked-deed, where kasab is the deed's drawn-in earning.
The spine. The whole passage runs on one axis, alloy against single, stated in metallurgy and dyeing rather than in tribal labels. Every positive term is a figure of no-mixture: ḥanīf veered onto the one straight line, muslim handed over whole and intact, mukhliṣ smelted clear of dross, and the pivot ṣibgha dyed one color clean through. Every negative term is splitting or sharing: mushrik shared-out and snared, nufarriq the split we refuse, shiqāq the crack they fall to. The argument is not "which sect," it is purity-of-allegiance read as material: one color, one smelting, one handing-over, no partner, no alloy, no fissure. The refrain bracketing the unit (134 repeated verbatim at 141) drains the ancestral claim of all leverage. The forefather-body is emptied to vacancy, and only the hand's own drawing-in carries weight, so lineage purchases nothing against the single dye each fiber must take for itself.
Flagged, minority: نَصَارَى I read at the root ن-ص-ر, helpers/supporters. The competing derivation routes it through al-Nāṣira, Nazareth, a place-name rather than a root-image. Held loosely, root-reading preferred.
Salam.