The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page cxcix
GENERAL INTRODUCTION from your weaknesses, strengthen your hearts, and relieve your anxiety. " The Prophet prayed himself in the following words: God, Thou hast sent to me the Quran. Thou waitest not to call anyone to account. These hordes which have come to attack us, give them defeat. God, I beseech thee again: Defeat them, make us dominate over them, and upset all their evil intentions (Bukhārī). And again: God, Thou hearest those who cry to Thee in misery and in affliction. Thou repliest to those who are stricken with anxiety. Relieve me of my pain, my anxiety, and my fear. Thou knowest what odds I and my Companions are up against (Zurqānī). The hypocrites became more nervous than others in the Muslim force. All regard for the honour of their side and the safety of their town, their women and children, disappeared from their hearts. But they did not want to be disgraced in the presence of their own side. Therefore, they began to desert the Muslims one by one on slender excuses. The Quran refers to this in 33:14. And a section of them even asked leave of the Prophet, saying, 'Our houses are exposed and defenceless. ' And they were not exposed. They only sought to flee away. The state of battle at the moment, and the condition in which the Muslims stood at the time is described in the Quran in the following verses: When they came upon you from above you and from below you, and when your eyes became distracted, and the hearts reached to the throats, and you thought diverse thoughts about Allah. Then were the believers sorely tried, and they were shaken with a violent shaking. And when the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts was a disease said, 'Allah and His Messenger promised us nothing but delusion'. And when a party of them said, 'O people of Yathrib, you have possibly no stand against the enemy, therefore turn back' (33:11-14). Here Muslims are reminded how they were attacked from the front by a confederacy of Arab tribes, and in the rear by the Jews. They are reminded how miserable they were at that time. Their eyes flinched and their hearts were in their mouths. They even began to entertain doubts about God. The believers were then on trial. They were all given a shaking. The hypocrites and the spiritually diseased began to say, 'We have all been fooled by false promises made to us by God and His Prophet!' A party of them even began to unnerve the Muslim force saying, 'There is no fighting now. There is nothing to do but to go back. ' clxxiii