whose covenant was open-ended—terminating only with death, whether by natural causes or on the battlefield. Others are still awaiting its completion: they have already fulfilled part of it and now wait to discharge the covenant in full.(1)

The original sense of qadāʾ is to complete and bring to perfection.(2)

“So that Allah may reward the truthful for their truthfulness and punish the hypocrites if He wills, or relent toward them. Surely Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Al-Aḥzāb 33:24)

Allah—exalted is He—has made it clear that He sent the Confederates so that He might recompense the truthful for the sincerity they displayed,(3) for they proved genuine in their faith, just as He says: “The believers are only those who believe in Allah and His Messenger, then harbor no doubt, and who strive with their wealth and their lives in the path of Allah; it is they who are the truthful.” (Al-Ḥujurāt 49:15)

Thus, He confines true faith to those believers who struggle in His cause and informs us that they alone are truthful in their claim, “We believe,” unlike the desert Arabs who said, “We believe,” while faith had not yet entered their hearts; they had merely yielded and submitted outwardly.(4)

As for the hypocrites, they face two possibilities: either He will punish them, or He will turn to them in mercy.

Such, then, was the condition of the people during the digging of the Trench and in this very expedition.(5)