The Quran

Preface

۞ أَلَم تَرَ إِلَى الَّذينَ نافَقوا يَقولونَ لِإِخوانِهِمُ الَّذينَ كَفَروا مِن أَهلِ الكِتابِ لَئِن أُخرِجتُم لَنَخرُجَنَّ مَعَكُم وَلا نُطيعُ فيكُم أَحَدًا أَبَدًا وَإِن قوتِلتُم لَنَنصُرَنَّكُم وَاللَّهُ يَشهَدُ إِنَّهُم لَكاذِبونَ

Yusuf Ali

Hast thou not observed the Hypocrites say to their misbelieving brethren among the People of the Book? -¹ “If ye are expelled, we too will go out with you, and we will never hearken to any one in your affair; and if ye are attacked (in fight) we will help you”. But God is witness² that they are indeed liars.

The Jews of Banū al Nadir had been assured by the Hypocrites of Medīna of their support to their cause. They had thought that their defection from the Prophet’s Cause would so weaken that cause that they would save their friends. But they never intended to undertake any act involving self-sacrifice on their part; if they had helped their Jewish friends, it was not likely that they would have succeeded; and if they had actually gone to the fight, they had neither valour nor fervour to support them, and they would have fled ignominiously before the discipline, earnestness, and Faith of the men of Islam.
For this actually happened. They never stirred a finger for the Jews, and they never intended to do so. And God knows all their motives and secrets: cf. 47:26, n. 4850.