⦗123–126⦘ “Allah certainly granted you victory at Badr when you were weak. So fear Allah, that you may be grateful. * When you said to the believers, ‘Will it not suffice you that your Lord reinforce you with three thousand angels sent down? * Yes indeed! If you remain patient and fear Allah, and they come upon you from this very direction, your Lord will reinforce you with five thousand angels bearing distinctive marks. * Allah made this only as glad tidings for you and to reassure your hearts thereby. Victory comes only from Allah, the Almighty, the All-Wise.”
This is an expression of His favor toward His believing servants and a reminder of how He granted them victory on the day of Badr, when they were weak because of their small numbers and scant equipment, while their enemy possessed far greater numbers and equipment. The Battle of Badr took place in the second year after the Hijrah. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) set out from Medina with three hundred and a little over ten of his Companions. They had only seventy camels and two horses, and their purpose was to intercept a Quraysh caravan arriving from Syria. When the polytheists learned of this, they prepared in Mecca to rescue their caravan and set out with around a thousand fighters, complete equipment, ample weaponry, and many horses.
They met the Muslims at a watering place called Badr, between Mecca and Medina, and fought. Allah granted the Muslims a tremendous victory: they killed seventy of the polytheists, including their leading chiefs and bravest warriors, took seventy prisoners, and seized their encampment. The account will appear—if Allah wills—in Surah al-Anfāl, for that is its proper place. Allah Most High mentions it here, however, so that the believers may remember it, fear their Lord, and thank Him. Hence He said, “So fear Allah, that you may be grateful,” because whoever fears his Lord has shown gratitude to Him, whereas whoever abandons such fear has not shown Him gratitude.
This refers to when you, O Muhammad, said to the believers on the day of Badr, giving them glad tidings of victory: “Will it not suffice you that your Lord reinforce you with three thousand angels sent down? Yes indeed! If you remain patient and fear Allah, and they come upon you from this very direction”—that is, from the direction in which they were then headed, namely the Battle of Badr—“your Lord will reinforce you with five thousand angels bearing distinctive marks,” meaning that they bore the distinctive marks of valiant warriors.
Allah therefore made their reinforcement contingent upon three conditions: patience, fear of Allah, and the polytheists’ coming upon them from that very direction. This promise concerned the sending down of the angels mentioned and reinforcing the believers with them. As for the promise of victory and the defeat of their enemies’ schemes, Allah made it contingent upon the first two conditions, as stated previously: “If you remain patient and fear Allah, their schemes will not harm you in the least.”
“Allah made this”—meaning His reinforcement of you with the angels—“only as glad tidings” in which you would rejoice and take heart, “and to reassure your hearts thereby. Victory comes only from Allah.” Thus, do not rely upon the means at your disposal. Those means merely bring reassurance to your hearts. True victory, which none can oppose, comes through Allah’s willing to grant victory to whomever He wills among His servants. If He wills, He grants victory to those who possess the requisite means, as is His customary way with His creation; and if He wills, He grants victory to the weak and lowly, thereby showing His servants that every matter is in His hands and that all affairs return to Him.
Hence He said, “from Allah, the Almighty”: no creature can resist Him. Rather, all creatures are humbled and governed beneath His direction and irresistible power. “The All-Wise,” who places all things in their proper places. He possesses wisdom in sometimes allowing the disbelievers to gain ascendancy over the Muslims—an ascendancy that does not last. Allah Most High says, “That is so. Had Allah willed, He could have exacted retribution from them Himself; but He willed otherwise in order to test some of you through others.”