The Quran

لَقَد نَصَرَكُمُ اللَّهُ في مَواطِنَ كَثيرَةٍ ۙ وَيَومَ حُنَينٍ ۙ إِذ أَعجَبَتكُم كَثرَتُكُم فَلَم تُغنِ عَنكُم شَيئًا وَضاقَت عَلَيكُمُ الأَرضُ بِما رَحُبَت ثُمَّ وَلَّيتُم مُدبِرينَ

Muhammad Asad

Indeed, God has succoured you on many battlefields, [when you were few;] and [He did so, too,] on the Day of Hunayn, when you took pride in your great numbers and they proved of no avail whatever to you - for the earth, despite all its vastness, became [too] narrow for you and you turned back, retreating:¹

The battle of Hunayn, a valley situated on one of the roads leading from Mecca to Ta'if, took place in the year 8 H., shortly after the conquest of Mecca by the Muslims. The latters' opponents were the pagan tribes of Hawazin (in whose territory the valley lay) and their allies, the Band Thaqif. The Muslim army - reinforced by many newly-converted Meccans - comprised about twelve thousand men, whereas the Hawazin and Thaqif had only one-third of that number at their disposal. Relying on their great numerical superiority, the Muslims were over-confident and, apparently, careless. In the narrow defiles beyond the oasis of Hunayn they fell into an ambush prepared by the tribesmen and began to retreat in disorder after heavy losses had been inflicted on them by the bedouin archers. It was only the example of the Prophet and his early adherents (the Meccan muhajirun and the ansar from Medina) that saved the day and turned the initial rout of the Muslims into a decisive victory. It is to this battle that verses 25 and 26 refer, pointing out that true succour can come only from God, and that great numbers, ties of kinship and worldly wealth are of no avail if they are "dearer to you than God and His Apostle and the struggle in His cause" (see preceding verse).