help from Allah and a near victory—all of it good news for the believers.”
“Help from Allah” means that Allah will grant you victory over your enemies. There is no doubt that when a person triumphs over his foe he cherishes that victory, for Allah, Exalted is He, makes the punishment of the enemy occur at the believer’s own hands. As He says:
“Fight them, and Allah will punish them at your hands, disgrace them, grant you victory over them, heal the hearts of a believing people, and remove the rage within their hearts. Allah turns in mercy to whom He wills, and Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.”
How great are the benefits when Allah chastises your enemy through you! For this reason He said, “help from Allah and a near victory.” This promise was fulfilled for the believers in the earliest generations of this community: Allah opened to them vast lands, bestowed upon them remarkable conquests, and allowed them to take abundant spoils because they upheld what was due of faith in Allah and striving in His path.
Then He said, “and give glad tidings to the believers,” that is, proclaim all of these blessings to everyone who truly believes in them and discharges his duty of faith in Allah and His Messenger, together with struggle in the way of Allah.
After that, the author—may Allah have mercy on him—cited prophetic traditions on the superiority of jihad and of taking one’s post on guard in the path of Allah, and that a single morning or evening spent in Allah’s cause, or in such guard duty, is better than the world and all it contains. This is an immense merit—better than the whole world from its very beginning to its very end, along with everything in it.
It is not merely better than the slice of the world in which you now live; rather, it surpasses the entire world and all that it holds, from the moment of its creation—whose exact time none knows but Allah—until the moment of its end, which likewise no one can determine. All of it is outweighed by that single act.
He also said, “The space that one of you’s whip occupies in Paradise is better than the world and all it contains,” and the same explanation applies here as was mentioned before: the whole of this world, from its first moment to its last, is