Surah al-Ahzab (The Confederates) 33 : 23

Overview (Verses 22 - 25)
 
Strengthening Faith
 
The sūrah then depicts an image of firm faith and believers confronting real danger, one which is great enough to make even believers’ hearts tremble. Yet the believers transform this trembling into something that gives them hope and reassurance: “When the believers saw the Confederate forces they said: ‘This is what God and His Messenger have promised us! Truly spoke God and His Messenger.’ This only served to strengthen their faith and their submission to God.” (Verse 22)
 
The situation the Muslims faced on this occasion was so testing and stressful that it is described as such by none other than God: “That was a situation when the believers were sorely tested and severely shaken.” (Verse 11) They were ordinary people, and people have limited ability. God does not charge them with more than they can hear. Despite being assured of God’s eventual support and the good news the Prophet gave them, going beyond their immediate problems to tell them of where Islam would soon expand to, spreading into Yemen and Syria and even further east and west, danger was staring them in the eye, giving them almost too much stress to cope with.
 
Ĥudhayfah’s story is perhaps the most accurate in relaying how the Muslims felt. The Prophet sensed this fear and apprehension. Therefore, when he wanted an assignment to be taken up, he made its reward clear. He said: ‘Who is willing to go and find out what our enemies are doing and return. I shall pray to God to make any volunteer for this mission my Companion in Heaven.’ Yet despite this certain promise of returning safely and being assured of a high place in heaven, there were still no volunteers. When the Prophet called Ĥudhayfah by name, he said: ‘I then had no choice but to go.’ This could not have happened except in a situation of extreme stress and hardship.
 
However, side by side with the rolled eyes and shaken hearts there was an unseverable bond with God, a firm awareness of divine rules, and an unshakeable belief that these rules cannot he changed, and that their results are bound to come about once they have been set in motion. Hence, the Muslims felt that their being so severely tested heralded their victory, because they knew that they had been true to their trust: “Do you reckon that you will enter paradise while you have not suffered like those [believers] who passed away before you? Affliction and adversity befell them, and so terribly shaken were they that the Messenger and the believers with him would exclaim, ‘When will God’s help come?’ Surely, God’s help is close at hand.” (2: 214) They felt that they themselves had also been terribly shaken. Hence, God’s help must be close at hand. This is what prompted them to say: “This is what God and His Messenger have promised us! Truly spoke God and His Messenger. This only served to strengthen their faith and their submission to God.” (Verse 22)
 
“This is what God and His Messenger have promised us.” Such trouble and distress is the preamble to the help we have been promised. Therefore, God’s help is bound to come: “Truly spoke God and His Messenger:” They have spoken the truth in as far as both the indication and the result are concerned. Therefore, they were certain of the outcome: “This only served to strengthen their faith and their submission to God.”
 
Those Muslims were ordinary human beings subject to all the qualities and weaknesses that distinguish humans. Nor was it required of them that they surpass the limitations of the human race or shed its characteristics. God had created them such and they were meant to remain such. They were not expected to transform themselves into another race: angels, jinn, or animals. Therefore, as humans, it was inevitable that they would be afflicted by hardship and shaken when facing extreme danger, but they remained nevertheless faithful to their bond with God. This was the bond that stopped them from falling, renewed their hope and prevented their despair. This is what made the generation of the Prophet’s Companions unique, having no parallel in history. We need to understand this very clearly and recognize that they attained their summit while retaining all their human strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, they also held tight to their bond with God.
 
When we see ourselves weaken under stress, shaken by danger or worry at what lies ahead, we must not allow despair to overwhelm us, or feel that we are lost, unfit to achieve any high standard. What we must not do is hold on to our weak feelings thinking that this must be so because it happens o others who are better than ourselves. We must remember our bond with God and hold to this, because it is through this that we can shed our weakness, and regain our confidence and reassurance. We should look at our worry and fear as a signal that help is on its way. Then we will find renewed strength and self belief.
 
It was such balance that moulded that unique generation in the early days of Islam, which the sūrah praises in the following terms: “Among the believers are people who have always been true to what they have vowed before God. Some have already fulfilled their pledges by death, and some are still waiting. They have not changed in the least.” (Verse 23) This is set against the other type of person who pledged to God that they would never run away, but who were untrue to their vows: “They had previously vowed before God that they would never turn their backs in flight. A vow made to God must surely be answered for.” (Verse 15)
 
One of the young Companions of the Prophet reports: “I was named after my uncle Anas ibn al-Nađr. He did not take part in the Battle of Badr, and he was sad. He thought: ‘This was the first major battle the Prophet fights and I was absent. Should I live to fight in another battle with the Prophet, God will see what I will do.’ He then felt that this was a serious pledge and he feared to say anything more. He was later in the Muslim army in the Battle of Uĥud. Before the battle, he saw Sa`d ibn Mu`ādh and said to him: ‘Abū `Amr! I can smell heaven! I smell it coming from the side of Uĥud.’ He fought hard until he was killed. He received 80 odd strikes variously from a sword, spear and arrow. Indeed, he was unrecognisable. His sister, my aunt, al-Rubayyi` bint al-Nađr, said: ‘I could only identify my brother by his finger.’ When the verse saying, Among the believers are people who have always been true to what they have vowed before God,’ was revealed, people felt that this referred to him and others who did as he did.” [Related by Aĥmad, Muslim, al-Tirmidhī and al- Nasā’ī]
 
The sūrah then includes a comment staring the purpose of testing believers and the outcome of honouring a vow or breaking it: “God will surely reward the truthful for having been true to their word, and will punish the hypocrites, if that be His will, or accept their repentance. God is indeed Much-Forgiving, Merciful.” (Verse 24) Comments like this, which are often found within the description of events, serve to outline the purpose behind what takes place, making it clear that everything is determined by God’s will. Nothing occurs by coincidence. Everything is according to plan and for a definite purpose. All events reflect God’s grace and confirm that His forgiveness and mercy are always close at hand, “God is indeed Much-Forgiving Merciful.” (Verse 24)
 
The sūrah’s discussion of the Encounter of the Moat concludes by stating its outcome which confirmed the believers’ expectations and showed how far in error the unbelievers and hypocrites had gone: “God turned back the unbelievers in all their rage and fury; they gained no advantage. He spared the believers the need to fight. God is Most Powerful, Almighty.” (Verse 25)
 
From start to finish, God was in control of the battle, turning it the way He wished. The sūrah confirms this in its presentation, attributing to God every event and its outcome, so that we can understand this fact making it part of our overall Islamic concept.