Illa allatheena amanoo waAAamiloo assalihati wathakaroo Allaha katheeran wantasaroo min baAAdi ma (surah Shuara: 227)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(26:227) save those who believed and did good works and remembered Allah much, and when they were treated unjustly, they only defended themselves (and did not show vindictiveness) *145 .And the iniquitous people will soon come to know what punishment awaits them. *146

Illal lazeena aamanoo w a`amilus saalihaati wa zakarul laaha kaseeranw wantasaroo mim ba`di maa zulimoo; wa saya`lamul lazeena zalamooo aiya munqalbiny yanqaliboon

*145) Here those poets have made an exception from the general reproach, who possess the following four characteristics:
(1) They should be believers in Allah, His Prophets, His Books and the Hereafter.
(2) They should be pious in practical life and not sinners, nor free from moral restrictions to say whatever they like.
(3) They should be remembering Allah much in their day to day lives as well as in their literary work. It should not be so that their personal lives reflect God-consciousness and piety, but their poetry is replete with themes of debauchery and lusts of the flesh, or that their poetry is full of serious themes of wisdom and God-consciousness, but their personal lives are devoid of any trace of the remembrance of Allah. As a matter of fact, both these states are equally despicable. A good poet is he who is Godconscious in his personal life and whose poetic talent and skills also are devoted to the advancement of the way of life followed by the God-conscious, God-fearing and God-worshipping people.
(4) They should not satirize others for personal reasons, nor take vengeance on others on account of personal, racial and national prejudices, but when they are required to support the truth, they should use their literary powers like weapons of war against the unjust and treacherous people. It does not behove the believers to adopt a humble, supplicating attitude against injustice and oppression. Traditions show that when the unbelieving and mushrik poets raised a storm of false accusations against Islam and the Holy Prophet and spread the poison of hatred against the Muslims, the Holy Prophet urged and encouraged the poets of Islam to counter attack them. Once he said to Ka`b bin Malik, "Satirize them, for, I swear by God in Whose hand is my soul, your verse will be more effective and damaging for them than the arrow. " Likewise he said to Hassan bin Thabit, "Deal with them and Gabriel is with you". And, "Say and the Holy Spirit is with you." Once he said, "The believer fights with the sword as well as with the tongue. "
*146) "The iniquitous people": The people who out of sheer obduracy calumniated the Holy Prophet of being a sorcerer, poet and a mad and enchanted man, in order to defeat lslam, and to confuse the other people and distract them from his message and invitation.