(7-11) “Believe in Allah and His Messenger, and donate from what He has entrusted you with. So those of you who believe and donate will have a mighty reward. * Why do you not believe in Allah while the Messenger is inviting you to have faith in your Lord, although He has already taken your covenant, if you will ever believe? * He is the One Who sends down clear revelations to His servant to bring you out of darkness and into light. For indeed Allah is Ever Gracious and Most Merciful to you. * And why should you not spend in the cause of Allah, while Allah is the sole inheritor of the heavens and the earth? Those of you who donated and fought before the victory are unparalleled. They are far greater in rank than those who donated and fought afterwards. Yet Allah has promised each a fine reward. And Allah is All-Aware of what you do. * Who is it that will lend to Allah a good loan, which Allah will multiply many times over? And they will have an honourable reward.”
Allah Most High commands His servants to believe in Him, His Messenger, and what he brought, and to spend in His cause from the wealth that Allah has placed in their hands and entrusted to them, so that He may see how they act. Having commanded them to do so, He then encourages and urges them by mentioning the reward He has assigned for it. He says: “So those of you who believe and donate”—that is, those who combine faith in Allah and His Messenger with spending in His cause—“will have a mighty reward.” The greatest [and most sublime] part of that reward is their Lord’s pleasure, attaining the abode of His honour, and the everlasting bliss within it that Allah has prepared for the believers and those who strive in His cause. He then mentions [the reason] calling them to faith and the absence of anything preventing it, saying:
“Why do you not believe in Allah while the Messenger is inviting you to have faith in your Lord, although He has already taken your covenant, if you will ever believe?” That is: What prevents you from believing when the Messenger Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him—the finest of the messengers and the noblest caller ever to call to Allah—is inviting you? This requires you to hasten to answer his call, heed it, and accept the truth he brought. Allah has already taken from you a solemn covenant to believe, if you are believers. Moreover, out of His kindness and care for you, He did not suffice with the mere call of the Messenger, who is the noblest of all creation. Rather, He supported him with miracles and demonstrated the truth of what he brought through clear signs. Thus He says: “He is the One Who sends down clear revelations to His servant”—that is, manifest signs showing people of understanding that everything he brought is true (1) and is the truth of absolute certainty—“to bring you out,” by sending the Messenger to you and revealing through him the Book and wisdom,
“of darkness and into light”—that is, from the darkness of ignorance and disbelief into the light of knowledge and faith. This proceeds from His mercy and compassion toward you, for He is more merciful to His servants than a mother is to her child. “For indeed Allah is Ever Gracious and Most Merciful to you.”