in which case they are a punishment for him, as with the disbelievers and hypocrites.

Then Allah Most High says:

“When the believers saw the confederate forces, they said, ‘This is what Allah and His Messenger promised us, and Allah and His Messenger spoke the truth.’ And it only increased them in faith and submission.”

The scholars said that Allah had already revealed in Sūrat al-Baqarah:

“Or do you think that you will enter Paradise without undergoing the like of what befell those who passed away before you? They were afflicted by poverty and hardship and were so shaken that the Messenger and those who believed with him said, ‘When will Allah’s help come?’ Indeed, Allah’s help is near.”

Thus Allah, glorified be He, made clear—rebuking anyone who supposed otherwise—that they would not enter Paradise until they had been tried like the nations before them: with “poverty,” meaning need and destitution; “hardship,” meaning pain and illness; and “being shaken,” meaning being shaken by the enemy. When the confederate forces came in the year of the Trench and the believers saw them, they said:

“This is what Allah and His Messenger promised us, and Allah and His Messenger spoke the truth.”

They knew that Allah had tried them by shaking them, and that the like of what had befallen those before them had now befallen them. This only increased them in faith and submission to Allah’s judgment and command. Such is the condition of some people in this campaign: they said these very words.

Likewise, His words:

“Among the believers are men who have been true to the covenant they made with Allah. Among them are those who have fulfilled their vow.”

That is, the covenant a man made with Allah: he fought until he was killed, or else survived. Nahb means a vow or covenant. It derives from nahīb (wailing), which is