8. Al-Anfaal

Remember when He caused slumber to overcome you as security against the fear that had befallen you from Him from God and sent down upon you water from the heaven to purify you thereby from minor and major ritual impurities; and to remove from you the evil of Satan his whisperings to you that had you been on the right path you would not have been thirsty and impure while the idolaters enjoyed access to water; and to strengthen to seal your hearts with certainty and endurance; and to make firm your feet lest they sink in the sand.

When your Lord inspired the angels with whom He reinforced the Muslims saying ‘I am with you with assistance and victorious help so make the believers stand firm by helping them and giving them good tidings. I shall cast terror fear into the hearts of the disbelievers; so smite above the necks that is the heads and smite of them every finger!’ that is smite the extremities of their hands and feet thus when one of them went to strike an disbeliever’s head it would roll off before his sword reached it. The Prophet s threw a handful of pebbles against them and every single idolater was struck in his eye and thus they were defeated.

That chastisement befalling them is because they had contended with they had opposed God and His Messenger whoever contends with God and with His Messenger surely God is severe in retribution against him.

That chastisement is for you so taste it O disbelievers in this world; and know that for the disbelievers in the Hereafter is the chastisement of the Fire.

O you who believe when you encounter the disbelievers inching forward that is amassed advancing slowly because of their large numbers do not turn your backs to them fleeing.

Whoever turns his back to them on that day the day of the encounter with them unless manœuvring turning around for battle — by pretending to be in flight as a trick while actually intending to relaunch an attack — or joining another detachment a company of Muslims calling on it for assistance he has truly incurred the wrath of God and his abode will be Hell — an evil journey’s end! an evil return it is. This threat applies so long as the numbers of disbelievers do not surpass twice that of the believers.

You did not slay them at Badr by your own might but God slew them by giving you assistance and you threw not O Muhammad (s) against the eyes of the unbelieving folk when you threw the pebbles for a handful of pebbles thrown by a human being cannot strike the eyes of every person in a large troop but God threw by making that throw reach them. He did this in order to vanquish the disbelievers and that He might try the believers with a fair test a fair gift namely booty; surely God is Hearing of their sayings Knowing of their conditions.

That is the true gift for you and know that God weakens the plan of the disbelievers.

If you have sought a judgement O disbelievers if you have sought a decisive conclusion of this battle — Abū Jahl had said ‘O God! Whoever among the two of us is the one who has severed the ties of kinship and brought us what we had never known destroy them today!’ — the judgement the decisive conclusion has now come to you by the fact that the one so described has already perished this was Abū Jahl and those killed with him and not the Prophet s and the believers; and if you desist from unbelief and waging war it will better for you. But if you return to fight against the Prophet s We shall return to assist him against you and your host your troops will not avail will not protect you in any way however numerous it be; and verily God is with the believers read thus inna indicating a new sentence; or read anna with an implicit lām li-anna‘Llāha ma‘a’l-mu’minīn ‘because God is with the believers’.