will Allah’s help come?’ Surely Allah’s help is near.” I then met ‘Urwah and mentioned this to him. He said:

‘Ā’ishah said, “Allah forbid! By Allah, whenever Allah promised His Messenger anything, he knew it would come to pass before it happened. Rather, the messengers continued to suffer affliction until they thought and feared that those with them might reject them as liars.”

She therefore recited:

“And thought that they had been rejected as liars,”

with the consonant doubled.

Thus, ‘Ā’ishah understood the messengers’ despair as concerning the unbelievers who rejected them, and their apprehension of being rejected as liars as concerning those who believed in them. However, the other reading is firmly established and cannot be denied. Ibn ‘Abbās interpreted it accordingly, and the apparent meaning of the wording supports him. The verse that follows it concerns only the sense that help was slow in coming, expressed in their words:

“When will Allah’s help come?”

This expresses impatience at the delay and asks that help be hastened.

His words:

“And thought that they had been lied to,”

may be comparable to His words:

“When he recited, Satan cast something into his recitation, but Allah abolishes what Satan casts.”

In the Quran and Sunnah, conjecture does not mean a belief judged more likely to be true, as it does in the terminology used by a group of speculative theologians when discussing knowledge; they call a belief judged less likely to be true a misapprehension. Rather, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the most false of speech.”

And Allah Most High said:

“Indeed, conjecture is no substitute for the truth.”