102 You who believe, be mindful of God, as is His due, and make sure you devote yourselves to Him, to your dying moment. 103 Hold fast to God’s rope all together; do not split into factions. Remember God’s favor to you: you were enemies and then He brought your hearts together and you became brothers by His grace; you were about to fall into a pit of Fire and He saved you from it– in this way God makes His revelations clear to you so that you may be rightly guided. 104 Be [a] a community that calls for what is good, urges what is right, and forbids what is wrong: those who do this are the successful ones. 105 Do not be like those who, after they have been given clear revelation, split into factions and fall into disputes: a terrible punishment awaits such people. 106 On the Day when some faces brighten and others darken, it will be said to those with darkened faces, ‘How could you reject your faith after believing? Taste the torment for doing so,’ 107 but those with brightened faces will be in God’s grace, there to remain. 108 These are God’s revelations: We recite them to you [Prophet] with the Truth. God does not will injustice for His creatures. 109 Everything in the heavens and earth belongs to God; it is to Him that all things return.
Misbehavior
110 [Believers], you are the best community singled out for people: you order what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in God. If the People of the Book had also believed, it would have been better for them. For although some of them do believe, most of them are lawbreakers– 111 they will not do you much harm: even if they come out to fight you, they will soon turn tail; they will get no help– 112 and, unless they hold fast to a lifeline from God and from mankind, they are overshadowed by vulnerability wherever they are found. They have drawn God’s wrath upon themselves. They are overshadowed by weakness, too, because they have persistently disbelieved in God’s revelation and killed prophets without any right, all because of their disobedience and boundless transgression. 113 But they are not all alike. There are some among the People of the Book who are upright, who recite God’s revelations during the night, who bow down in worship, 114 who believe in God and the Last Day, who order what is right and forbid what is wrong, who are quick to do good deeds. These people are among the righteous 115 and they will not be denied [the reward] for whatever good deeds they do: God knows exactly who is conscious of Him.
116 As for those who disbelieve, neither their possessions nor their children will help them against God– they will be companions in the Fire, there to remain– 117 and whatever they give away in this life will be nullified: a frosty wind strikes and destroys the harvest of people who have wronged themselves. It was not God who wronged them; they wronged themselves.
118 You who believe, do not take for your intimates such outsiders as spare no effort to ruin you and want to see you suffer: their hatred is evident from their mouths, but what their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made Our revelations clear for you; will you not use your reason? 119 This is how it is: here you are, you love them, but they do not love you; you believe in all the Scriptures and when they meet you, they say, ‘We believe,’ but when they are alone, they bite their fingertips in rage at you. [Prophet], say, ‘Die of rage [if you wish]!’ God knows exactly what is in everyone’s hearts. 120 They grieve at any good that befalls you [believers] and rejoice at your misfortunes. But if you are steadfast and conscious of God, their scheming will not harm you in the least: God encircles everything they do.
Victory is in the Hands of God
121 [Prophet], remember when you left your home at dawn to assign battle positions to the believers: God hears and knows everything. 122 Remember when two groups of you were about to lose heart and God protected them– let the believers put their trust in God– 123 God helped you at Badr when you were very weak. Be mindful of God, so that you may be grateful. 124 Remember when you said to the believers, ‘Will you be satisfied if your Lord reinforces you by sending down three thousand angels? 125 Well, if you are steadfast and mindful of God, your Lord will reinforce you with five thousand swooping angels if the enemy should suddenly attack you!’ and God arranged it so, 126 as a message of hope for you [believers] to put your hearts at rest– help comes only from God, the Mighty, the Wise– 127 and in order to cut off the flanks of the disbelievers’ army and frustrate them, to make them withdraw in total defeat. 128 Whether God relents towards them or punishes them is not for you [Prophet] to decide: they are wrongdoers. 129 Everything in the heavens and earth belongs to God. He forgives whoever He will and punishes whoever He will: God is most forgiving and merciful.
Footnotes
a. Razi explains that the preposition min in the Arabic, usually translated as ‘let there be among you’, here applies to the whole community, not just part of it.
The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)
The Qur'an / a new translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, copyright © 2004 Oxford World's Classics (Oxford University Press). Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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