yet Allah—glorified be He—knows absolutely everything.

At still other times this maʿiyyah signifies victory, support, steadfastness, and the like. Allah says, “Indeed, Allah is with those who are mindful of Him and those who excel in doing good” (al-Naḥl 16:128); and He says, “So do not weaken and call for peace while you have the upper hand. Allah is with you and will never deprive you of your deeds” (Muḥammad 47:35). Verses of this sort are many.

This third category of maʿiyyah is sometimes linked to a created being by description and sometimes to a created being in person.

His words, “Indeed, Allah is with those who are mindful of Him and those who excel in doing good” (al-Naḥl 16:128), attach the maʿiyyah to the creature by description; whoever embodies those qualities, Allah is with him.

At other times it is attached to a specific individual, as in: “If you do not help him, still Allah helped him when the disbelievers drove him out; he was the second of two while they were in the cave, when he said to his companion, ‘Do not grieve; Allah is indeed with us’” (al-Tawbah 9:40). Here it is connected to the very persons of the Messenger (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) and Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) while they were in the cave. Abu Bakr said to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), “O Messenger of Allah, if any one of them were merely to look down at his feet he would see us.” Quraysh were pursuing the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and Abu Bakr with utmost determination: they scaled every mountain, descended every valley, and combed every desert expanse. They even set a bounty of two hundred camels—one hundred for the Prophet and one hundred for Abu Bakr. People exhausted themselves in the search, yet Allah was with them. When the pursuers stood at the mouth of the cave, Abu Bakr said, “If one of them were to look down at his feet he would see us,” whereupon the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said to him