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1. Those who reject Allah and turn people away from Allah’s religion, Allah will nullify their deeds.
2. Those who have faith in Allah and do righteous deeds, and have faith in what Allah has revealed to His Messenger Muhammad - and what He has revealed to His Messenger Muhammad is the truth from their Lord - He will remit from them their wrongdoings and wont take them to task, and He will set right their affairs in this world and the Hereafter.
3. That mentioned recompense for the two groups is because those who reject Allah followed falsehood, and those who have faith in Allah and His Messenger followed the truth from their Lord. Thus, their recompense differs just as their efforts differed. Just as Allah showed His decision about the two groups, the group of the believers and the group of the disbelievers, Allah gives people their examples, so that similar things are linked.
4. When you, O believers, face those disbelievers who wage war against you then strike their necks with your swords, and persist in fighting them until you subdue them and eradicate their power. Once you have subdue them, tie the chains of the captives. When you capture them you have the option, as per the demand of interests, of being graceful to them by releasing them for no ransom, ransoming them for wealth or something else, killing them, or enslaving them. Continue fighting and capturing them until the war ends by the disbelievers’ accepting Islam or by your entering into a treaty with them. The mentioned trial of the believers with the disbelievers, the alternation of fortunes and the victory of one over the other, is Allah’s decision. If Allah willed to defeat the disbelievers without a fight, He would have done so, but He ordained striving in His path to test some of you with others. He tests who of the believers fights and who doesn’t. He tests the disbeliever with the believer: If the believer is killed he enters Paradise and if the believer kills him he enters the fire. Those who are killed in Allah’s path, Allah will never nullify their deeds.
5. He will enable them to follow the truth in their worldly life and He will set right their affairs.
6. He will enter them into Paradise on the day of resurrection, whose description He gave them in the world so they recognised it and He showed them their places in it in the Hereafter.
7. O you who have faith in Allah, and who acted on what He ordained for them, if you help Allah by helping His prophet and his religion, and by fighting the disbelievers, He will help you by granting you dominance over them and He will keep your feet firm in battle when you face them.
8. For those who disbelieved in Allah and His Messenger there is loss and destruction and Allah will nullify the reward of their deeds.
9. That punishment that will befall them is because they detested the Qur’ān that Allah revealed to His prophet because it contained the mention of Allah’s Oneness, so Allah destroyed their deeds and they were losers in the world and the Hereafter.
10. Have these deniers not travelled the earth and reflected over what was the end of those who had denied before them. It was a painful end. Allah destroyed their homes above them and destroyed them as well as their children and wealth. Disbelievers in every time and place will receive similar punishment.
11. That mentioned recompense is for the two groups, because Allah helps those who have faith in Him and because the disbelievers have no one to help them.
12. Allah will enter those who have faith in Allah and His Messenger and who do righteous deeds into gardens under whose palaces and trees rivers will flow. Those who reject Allah and His Messenger enjoy in the world by pursuing their desires and they eat like how cattle eat. They have no concern other than their stomachs and private parts. On the day of resurrection, the Fire will be their home to which they will go.
13. How many a town from the towns of the previous nations had more strength, wealth and children than that of Makkah, whose people evicted you from it! I destroyed them when they denied their messengers, and they had no helper to rescue them from Allah’s punishment when it came to them. Thus we are not unable to destroy the people of Makkah if I intend to do so.
14. Are those who have clear proof and glaring evidence from their Lord, and therefore worship Him with insight, like those for whom Satan has beautified their evil action, and they followed what their desires dictated to them by the worship of idols, the commission of sin and denial of the messengers?
15. The description of Paradise, which Allah has promised those who are mindful of Him, by fulfilling His instructions and avoiding His prohibitions, that He will make them enter is as follows: In it there are rivers of water whose smell and taste have not changed due to standing for long. In it there are rivers of milk whose taste has not changed. In it there are rivers of wine delicious to those who drink, and rivers of honey that has been purified from all impurities. Therein they will get all types of fruit that they wish for. Above all of that they will receive an obliteration of their sins from Allah, Who will not take them to task for them. Can the person who has this recompense be equal to those who will remain in the Fire never to come out, and who will be given extremely hot water to drink, which will cut the intestines of their stomachs due to its extreme heat?
16. Some of the hypocrites listen to you, O Messenger, but without acceptance and instead turn away, until when they leave your presence they say to those whom Allah had given knowledge: ‘What did he say in his talk just now?’ pretending to be ignorant and turning away. They are the ones whose hearts Allah has sealed, and thus no good reaches it, and they follow their desires, which have made them blind to the truth.
17. Those who are guided to the path of truth and to follow what the Messenger (peace be upon him) brought, their Lord increases them in guidance and direction to the truth, and He inspires them to do that which will protect them from the fire.
18. Are the disbelievers waiting for anything but the hour to come on them suddenly without their having any prior knowledge of it? Its signs have already come, such as the mission of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the splitting of the moon. How will they then take heed when the hour comes? It is unlikely that the reminder will be of benefit to them.
19. Be certain, O Messenger, that there is no being deserving of worship besides Allah and seek from Allah forgiveness for your sins. Seek forgiveness from Him for the sins of the believing men and women. Allah knows your movements in the day and your resting place at night. Nothing is hidden from Him.
20. Those who have faith in Allah say, longing for Allah to reveal to His Messenger a sūrah containing the instruction for fighting: ‘Why does not Allah reveal a sūrah in which fighting is mentioned.’ When Allah reveals a decisive unabrogated sūrah containing the mention of fighting, you, O Messenger, will see those hypocrites in whose hearts there is doubt looking at you like one who is unconscious on account of extreme fear and terror. So woe to them for withdrawing from fighting and being afraid of it.
21. To follow Allah’s instruction and to utter fitting words that are not unseemly is better for them. When fighting is imposed and the matter becomes serious, if they are true to Allah, in their having faith in Him and following Him, it would be better for them than hypocrisy and going against Allah’s instructions.
22. It is most probable that if you turn away from having faith in Allah and following Him, you will make mischief on earth by disbelief and sins, and you will cut family ties, just as you used to do in the period of ignorance.
23. Those who are described as making mischief on earth and cutting family ties are the ones whom Allah has distanced from His mercy, whose ears He has made deaf to hearing the truth with acceptance and submission, and whose sight He has blinded from seeing it with reflection.
24. Will these people who turn away not ponder over the Qur’ān and reflect over what is in it? If they pondered over it, it will guide them to every good and will distance them from every evil. Or are there locks on the hearts of these people that are tightly closed, so that no advice reaches them and no reminder benefits them?
25. Those who turn back from their belief towards disbelief and hypocrisy, after the proof has been established for them and the truth of the Prophet (peace be upon him) has become clear to them, Satan is the one who has beautified for them disbelief and hypocrisy and has raised distant hopes in them.
26. Such deviation occurred to them because they secretly said to the idolaters who hate the revelation that He had sent down to His messenger: We will follow you in some matters such as impeding the fighting. Allah knows what they keep hidden and what they make public. Nothing is hidden from Him and He will make apparent whatever He wishes to His messenger.
27. What will you think of the punishment and the gruesome state they will be in when the angels assigned to remove their souls will remove them, striking their faces and backs with steel hammers.
28. That severe punishment that will occur when their souls are removed is because they followed everything that brought Allah’s wrath on them, such as disbelief, hypocrisy, opposition to Allah and His messenger, and they hated what brings them close to their Lord and draws down on them His pleasure, such as faith in Allah and following His messenger. Thus Allah nullified their deeds.
29. Do those hypocrites in whose hearts there is doubt think that Allah will not bring out and expose their malice? He will certainly bring it out by testing them with trials to distinguish the person who is true in faith from the one who is false, and so that the believer becomes apparent and the hypocrite is exposed.
30. If I wished to point out the hypocrites to you, O Messenger, I would have shown them to you and you would have recognised them by their marks. You will soon recognise them by their manner of speech. Allah knows your deeds. Nothing of them is hidden from Him and He will recompense you for the same.
31. I will test you, O believers, with striving in Allah’s path and fighting and killing the enemy until I know - in a manner that makes it apparent to the servants - those of you who strive in Allah’s path, and those of you who are steadfast in fighting the enemy. I will test you so that I know those of you who are sincere and those who are false.
32. Those who reject Allah and His messenger, who abstain from Allah’s religion themselves and also prevent others from it, and who go against the Messenger and oppose him after it has become clear that he is a prophet, they do not harm Allah. They only harm themselves, and Allah will nullify their deeds.
33. O you who have faith in Allah, and who act on what He ordained, follow Allah and follow the Messenger by fulfilling their instructions and avoiding their prohibitions, and do not nullify your deeds by disbelief and ostentation.
34. Those who disbelieved in Allah and turned themselves as well as people away from Allah’s religion, and then passed away as disbelievers without repenting, Allah will not overlook their sins by covering them, rather He will take them to task for it and He will enter them into the Fire to remain there forever.
35. So do not become weak, O believers, in confronting your enemy, and call them to peace before they call you to it, when you are dominant and have the upper hand over them. Allah is with you with His help and support. He will not reduce the reward of your deeds at all. Instead, He will give you an increase in it out of His bounty.
36. The life of the world is only play and amusement. An intelligent person should not become occupied by it instead of working for his Hereafter. If you have faith in Allah and His messenger, and you are mindful of Allah by fulfilling His instructions and avoiding His prohibitions, He will give you the reward of your deeds in full without any reduction, and He will not ask you for all of your wealth. He will only ask you for the Zakat.
37. If He had to ask you for all of your wealth and insist in this request from you, you will become miserly with it, and He will bring out the greed and miserliness in your hearts. Thus that fact He is not asking it from you is out of kindness.
38. Here you are being called to spend a part of your wealth in Allah’s path, and you are not asked to spend all your wealth. Some of you desist from the required spending out of miserliness. Whoever is too miserly to spend a portion of his wealth in Allah’s path, is actually being miserly to his own detriment, as he is depriving himself of the reward of spending. Allah is the Self-sufficient Who is not in need of your spending. You are the ones in need of Him. If you turn back from Islam to disbelief, He will destroy you and bring a people besides you. Then they will not be like you, but they will be obedient to Him.