So the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, drew me close to himself, laid me down at his feet, covered me with the edge of his garment, and pressed my chest against the soles of his feet. I remained asleep until morning. When morning came, he said, “Rise, O sleepy one!” (1)

“When they came at you from above you and from below you, when eyes grew wild and hearts reached the throats, and you harbored all kinds of thoughts about Allah. There the believers were tested and shaken most severely.” (10–11)

His words, exalted is He, “When they came at you from above you,” mean: from above the valley, on the eastern side. They were Asad and Ghatafan, led by Malik ibn Awf al-Nasri and Uyaynah ibn Hisn al-Fazari, with a thousand men from Ghatafan. With them were Tulayhah ibn Khuwaylid al-Asadi among Banu Asad, and Huyayy ibn Akhtab among the Jews of Banu Qurayzah. “And from below you” means: from the bottom of the valley, on the western side. They were Quraysh and Kinanah, led by Abu Sufyan ibn Harb among Quraysh and those who followed him, and Abu al-A‘war Amr ibn Sufyan al-Sulami on the side of the trench.

It is said that what led to the Battle of the Trench was the Messenger of Allah’s, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, expulsion of Banu al-Nadir from their dwellings.

“And when eyes grew wild”: that is, they turned and stared in terror. 78/b It has also been said that they turned away from everything and did not look at their enemy. “And hearts reached the throats”: that is, they were displaced from their proper places until, out of terror, they reached the throats. The larynx is the inner part of the windpipe. This is figurative language, expressing the severity of fear. Al-Farra’ said: Its meaning is that they became cowardly. When a coward’s fear becomes intense, his lungs swell; and when the lungs swell, they raise the heart up to the larynx. Hence it is said of a coward, “His lungs have swollen.”

“And you harbored all kinds of thoughts about Allah”: that is, their assumptions differed. The hypocrites thought that Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, would be utterly destroyed, whereas the believers expected victory and triumph for themselves.

The reciters of Medina and Syria, along with Abu Bakr, recited the forms al-zununa (“the assumptions”), al-rasula (“the Messenger”), and al-sabila (“the way”) with the final alif retained both in connected recitation and when pausing, because they are written that way in the Quranic manuscripts. The reciters of Basrah and Hamzah read them without the alif in either case, according to the original form. The others retained the alif only when pausing, in conformity with the endings of the verses. “There the believers were tested”: that is, at that point the believers were tested by the siege and the fighting, so that the sincere might be distinguished from the hypocrite. “And they were shaken most severely”: that is, they were violently shaken.