Surah Al Anfal Tafseer

إِنَّ شَرَّ الدَّوَابَّ عِندَ اللّهِ الصُّمُّ

Verily, the worst of living creatures with Allah are the deaf,

who do not hear the truth,

الْبُكْمُ

and the dumb,

who cannot comprehend it,

الَّذِينَ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ

who understand not.

These indeed are the most wicked creatures, for every creature except them abide by the way that Allah created in them. These people were created to worship Allah, but instead disbelieved.

This is why Allah equated them to animals, when He said,

وَمَثَلُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ كَمَثَلِ الَّذِى يَنْعِقُ بِمَا لَا يَسْمَعُ إِلاَّ دُعَأءً وَنِدَاءً

And the example of those who disbelieve is as that of him who shouts to those that hear nothing but calls and cries. (2:171)

and,

أُوْلَـيِكَ كَالَانْعَـمِ بَلْ هُمْ أَضَلُّ أُوْلَـيِكَ هُمُ الْغَـفِلُونَ

They are like cattle, nay even more astray; those! They are the heedless ones. (7:179)

It was also said that;

the Ayah (8:22) refers to some of the pagans of Quraysh from the tribe of Bani `Abd Ad-Dar, according to Ibn Abbas, Mujahid and Ibn Jarir.

Muhammad bin Ishaq said that;

this Ayah refers to hypocrites, as we stated.

There is no contradiction here, because both disbelievers and hypocrites are devoid of sound comprehension, in addition to having lost the intention to do good.

Allah states here that such are those who neither have sound understanding nor good intentions, even if they have some type of reason