kinship, fosterage, and marriage; whereas they do not love you because of the difference in religion between you. Muqatil said: They are the hypocrites. The believers love them because of the faith they outwardly profess, while being unaware of what is in their hearts. “And you believe in all the Scripture”: that is, in all the revealed Scriptures, whereas they do not believe in your Scripture. “When they meet you, they say, ‘We believe’; but when they are alone”—that is, when some of them are with others—“they bite their fingertips at you in rage.” This means the ends of the fingers; the singular is unmulah, also pronounced anmalah. They do so out of rage at the concord they see among the believers and their united resolve. Biting one’s fingertips is a figurative expression for intense rage, even when no actual biting takes place. “Say, ‘Die in your rage!’” That is, remain in your rage until death. “Indeed, Allah knows best what is within hearts”: that is, the good and evil contained in hearts.
“If a blessing touches you, it grieves them; but if a misfortune befalls you, they rejoice in it. Yet if you are patient and mindful of Allah, their plotting will not harm you at all. Indeed, Allah encompasses all that they do. (120) And when you went forth at daybreak from your household, assigning the believers their positions for battle—and Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. (121)”
His saying, Exalted is He, “If a blessing touches you”: that is, if you believers receive a blessing through victory over your enemy, spoils that you gain from them, people successively entering your religion, and prosperity in your livelihoods, “it grieves them”—it makes them sorrowful. “But if a misfortune befalls you”: a hardship such as the failure of one of your military detachments, an enemy attack upon you, disagreement arising among you, drought, or a calamity that strikes you, “they rejoice in it. Yet if you are patient” in the face of their harm, “and mindful of Allah”—that is, fearing your Lord—“their plotting will not harm you at all”: that is, it will not diminish you in any way.
Ibn Kathir, Nafiʿ, and the reciters of Basra read it as la yaḍirkum, with a kasrah on the ḍad and an undoubled raʾ, from the verb ḍara yaḍiru ḍayran; it is in the jussive, as the response to the conditional clause. The others read it as la yaḍurrukum, with a dammah on the ḍad and a doubled raʾ, from ḍarra yaḍurru ḍarran, analogous to radda yaruddu raddan. There are two explanations for its being in the indicative. The first is that the jussive was intended, its original form being yaḍrurkum; then the first raʾ was assimilated into the second, its dammah was transferred to the ḍad, and the second raʾ was given dammah accordingly. The second is that la has the sense of “is not,” with an implied faʾ; the meaning is: If you are patient and mindful of Allah, then their plotting does not harm you at all. “Indeed, Allah encompasses all that they do”: that is, He knows it.
His saying, Exalted is He, “And when you went forth at daybreak from your household, assigning the believers their positions for battle”: al-Hasan said that this was on the day of Badr. Muqatil said: on the day of the Confederates. All the other exegetes said: on the day of Uhud, because the passage that follows, until near the end of the sura, concerns the battle of Uhud.
Mujahid, al-Kalbi, and al-Waqidi said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, went forth from the residence of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, and walked on foot to Uhud. There he arranged his Companions for battle as an arrow shaft is straightened. (1)