punishment more excruciating than the torment of the Fire—may Allah protect me and you from it.

What, then, is this transaction? He says: “Believe in Allah and His Messenger and strive in the path of Allah with your wealth and your lives; that is better for you, if you but knew” (61:11).

This, then, is the trade: faith in Allah and His Messenger, which in fact encompasses every ordinance of Islam. Yet the verse singles out striving (jihad), for the entire surah is devoted to jihad from beginning to end—“Indeed, Allah loves those who fight in His cause, lined up as though they were a solid structure” (61:4). After citing what relates to that, He says here: “and strive in the path of Allah with your wealth and your lives,” meaning: expend your utmost effort for Allah’s sake, spending your money and even your very selves.

“That is better for you”—better for you than anything else—“if you knew,” that is, if you are people of understanding. When reciting this verse and others like it, it is proper to pause at “That is better for you” and not attach it to “if you knew.” Reading it as a single phrase would give a false implication: “That is better for you if you know—so if you do not know, it is not better for you,” which is not Allah’s intent. Rather, the meaning is: “That is better for you.” Then He adds, “if you are people of knowledge,” as though saying: So grasp this, if you are fit to know.

That is the deed—what, then, is the reward? “He will forgive you your sins and admit you to Gardens beneath which rivers flow, and pleasant dwellings in Gardens of perpetual residence. That is the supreme triumph” (61:12).

These Gardens are what Allah has prepared for His righteous servants, and especially for those who strive in His cause. In Paradise there are one hundred levels that Allah has reserved for the warriors in His path; hence He speaks in the plural—“Gardens beneath which rivers flow.”