Qad kanat lakum oswatun hasanatun fee ibraheema wallatheena maAAahu ith qaloo liqawmihim (surah Mumtahina: 4)

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

(60:4) You have a good example in Abraham and his companions: they said to their people: “We totally dissociate ourselves from you, and from the deities that you worship instead of Allah. We renounce you *6 and there has come to be enmity and hatred between us and you until you believe in Allah, the One True God.” (But you may not emulate) Abraham’s saying to his father: “Certainly I will ask pardon for you, although I have no power over Allah to obtain anything on your behalf.” *7 (And Abraham and his companions prayed): “Our Lord, in You have we put our trust, and to You have we turned, and to You is our ultimate return.

Qad kaanat lakum uswatun basanatun feee Ibraaheema wallazeena ma`ahoo iz qaaloo liqawmihim innaa bura`aaa`u minkum wa mimmaa ta`budoona min doonil laahi kafarnaa bikum wa badaa bainanaa wa bainakumul `adaawatu wal baghdaaa`u abadan hattaa tu`minoo billaahi wahdahooo illaa qawla Ibraheema li abeehi la astaghfiranna laka wa maaa amliku laka minal laahi min shai; rabbanaa `alaika tawakkalnaa wa ilaika anabnaa wa ilaikal maseer

*6) That is, "We reject you: we neither consider you to be in the right nor your religion. " The inevitable demand of the faith in Allah is denial of taghut (Satan): "Whoever rejects taghut and believes in Allah has taken a firm support that never gives way." (Al-Baqarah: 256).
*7) In other words, it means: "Though there is an excellent example for you in Abraham's conduct in that he expressed disapproval of his pagan people and broke off all connections with them, yet his promise to pray for the forgiveness of his pagan father and then carrying it out practically is not worth following, for the believers should not have even this much relationship of love and sympathy with the disbelievers. In At-Taubah: 113, Allah has clearly warned: "It does not behove the Prophet and those who have believed that they should pray for the forgiveness of the polytheists even though they be near kinsmen. " Thus, no Muslim is allowed to pray for the forgiveness of his unbelieving kinsmen on the basis of the argument that the Prophet Abraham had done so. As for the question, why did the Prophet Abraham pray thus, and did he carry out his promise practically? the answer has been provided by the Qur'an in full detail. When his father expelled him from the house, he had said on his departure: "I bid you farewell: I will pray to my Lord for your forgiveness." (maryam: 47). On the basis of this very promise he prayed for him twice. One prayer is contained in Surah IbrMhim: 41: "Lord, forgive me and my parents and the believers on the Day when reckoning will be hold. " And the second prayer is in Surah AshShua'ra 86: "Forgive my father, for indeed he is from among those who have strayed and do not disgrace the an the Day when the people will be raised back to life." But afterwards when he realized that the father for whose forgiveness he was praying, wan an enemy of Allah, he excused himself from it and broke off even this relationship of love and sympathy with him:
"As regards the prayer of Abraham for his father, it was only to fulfil a promise he bad made to him, but when he realized that he was an enemy of Allah, he disowned him. The fact is that Abraham was a tender-hearted, Godfearing and forbearing man (AT-Taubah: 114).
A study of these verses make: the principle manifest that only that act of the prophets u worthy of following, which they persistently practised till the end. As regards those atta which they themselves gave up, or which Allah restrained them from practising or which were forbidden in the Divine Shari ah, they are not worth following, and no one shoWd follow such acts of theirs on the basis of the argument that that was such and such a prophet's practice.
Here, another question also arises, which may create confusion in some minds. In the verse under discussion, the saying of the Prophet Abraham which Allah has declared as not worth following, has two parts. The first part is that he said to his father: "I will pray for your forgiveness," and the second: `I have no power to get anything for you from Allah. " Of these the first thing's not being a worthy examples to be. followed is understandable, but, what is wrong with the second thing that that too has been made an exception from being an example worthily of imitation, whereas it by itself is a truth? The answer is that the saying of the Prophet Abraham has been included in the exception for the reason that when a person after making a promise with another to do something, says that it is riot in his power to do anything beyond that for him, it automatically gives the meaning that if it were in his power to do anything further for him, he would have done that too for his sake. This makes his relationship of sympathy with the other person even more manifest. On that very basis this second part of the saying of the Prophet Abraham also deserved to be included in the exception, although its subject was true in so far as it does not lit even in the power of a Prophet to have a person forgiven by Allah. 'Allama Alusi also in his Ruh al-Ma ani has given this same answer to this question.