Qala qad ojeebat daAAwatukuma fastaqeema wala tattabiAAanni sabeela allatheena la yaAAlamoon (surah Yunus: 89)

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

(10:89) Allah responded: 'The prayer of the two of you is accepted. So keep steadfast, and do not follow the path of the ignorant. *90

Qaala qad ujeebad da`watukumaa fastaqeemaa wa laa tattabi`aaanni sabeelal lazeena laaya`lamoon

*90). Those who are ignorant of reality and who have no grasp of the beneficent considerations underlying God's decisions are liable to misunderstand things. Such people observe the weakness of the forces that stand for truth as against the forces of falsehood. They observe that those who seek to make the truth prevail suffer a series of reverses. By way of contrast, they observe the dazzling worldly success of those who stand for falsehood. On such occasions they fall prey to several misconceptions. They begin to suspect that perhaps God Himself wants that His rebels should continue to hold sway over the earth, that perhaps even He - Who Himself is the Truth - is not willing to support the truth in its encounter with falsehood. Under the influence of such a fallacious line of reasoning, they conclude that the struggle for establishing the hegemony of the truth is an exercise in futility. They feel, therefore, satisfied with the freedom to practise religious principles in a very narrow domain of human life; this is provided within the framework of a system of life which is based on denial of the true faith and the 'right' to violate the injunctions of God.
In the present verse God has directed Moses (peace be on him) and his followers not to fall prey to such erroneous ideas. God's directive, as embodied in this verse, amounts to saying that people should patiently persist in their efforts in the face of adverse circumstances, lest they also fall prey to the same mistake as committed by those who lack knowledge and wisdom.