 His distraught parents were told by God and the Prophet in this verse that they could not compel their son to stay.In all cases, following the famous maxim "العبرة بعموم اللفظ لا بخصوص السبب" ("Consideration is granted to the Generality of the Language, not to the Specificity of the Reason for Revelation") it is concluded that the verse is general in meaning, and thus the verse has been understood over the centuries as a general command that people cannot be forced to convert to Islam.According to Khaled Abou El Fadl, and other scholars such as S. A. Rahman, the phrase "there is no compulsion in religion" from verse Q.2