—and in addition a stab from a spear and a shot from an arrow. Yet here I am dying (1) on my bed as a donkey dies (2); so may the eyes of the cowards never know rest!” (3)

Then the Most High said: “Allah already knows those among you who hold others back, and those who say to their brothers, ‘Come over to us’” (Al-Ahzab 33:18).

The scholars explain that some of the hypocrites withdrew from the trench [⦗62⦘] and entered Madinah. Whenever anyone arrived there, they would say, “Alas for you, stay here; do not go out.” They would even write to their brothers who were in the battle-camp: “Come to us in Madinah; we are waiting for you,” thereby discouraging them from fighting. They themselves would not show up at the camp unless they had no alternative; they would come only so that people might see their faces, but once attention slackened they slipped back to the city.

One of them left the Prophet ﷺ, came upon his full brother, and found him sitting with roasted meat and nabidh (a date-fermented drink). He said to him (4), “You are sitting here while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is between spears and swords?!” The brother replied, “Come over to me, for you and your companion have been surrounded.”

Thus the Qurʾan describes those who hold others back (5) from jihad, and they fall into two categories: either (6) they are in the very land of the combatants or they are elsewhere. If they are with the combatants, they obstruct them from jihad by word, by deed, or