(88–89) “But the Messenger and those who believe with him strive with their wealth and their lives. It is they who shall have all good things, and it is they who will prosper. Allah has prepared for them Gardens beneath which rivers flow, where they will abide forever. That is the supreme triumph.”

Allah, Exalted is He, says: If these hypocrites remain behind and fail to strive, Allah has no need of them. Allah has servants and chosen ones among His creation whom He has singled out for His grace, and they will undertake this task. They are “the Messenger,” Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and “those who believe with him,” who “strive with their wealth and their lives,” neither reluctant nor indolent, but joyful and full of glad tidings. “It is they who shall have all good things”—the many blessings of this world and the Hereafter—“and it is they who will prosper”: those who attain the loftiest aims and the most perfect objects of desire.

“Allah has prepared for them Gardens beneath which rivers flow, where they will abide forever. That is the supreme triumph.” Woe, then, to anyone who does not desire what they desired and thereby loses his religion, his worldly life, and his Hereafter. This resembles the words of Allah, Exalted is He: “Say, ‘Believe in it or do not believe. Indeed, when it is recited to those who were given knowledge before it, they fall upon their faces in prostration,’” and His words: “If these people disbelieve in it, We have already entrusted it to a people who do not disbelieve in it.”