The Quran

243

Preface

۞ أَلَم تَرَ إِلَى الَّذينَ خَرَجوا مِن دِيارِهِم وَهُم أُلوفٌ حَذَرَ المَوتِ فَقالَ لَهُمُ اللَّهُ موتوا ثُمَّ أَحياهُم ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَذو فَضلٍ عَلَى النّاسِ وَلٰكِنَّ أَكثَرَ النّاسِ لا يَشكُرونَ

Yusuf Ali

Didst thou not Turn by vision to those who abandoned their homes, though they were thousands (In number), for fear of death? God said to them: “Die”: Then He restored them to life.¹ For God is full of bounty to mankind, but Most of them are ungrateful.

We now return to the subject of Jihad, which we left at 2:214-216. We are to be under no illusion about it. If we are not prepared to fight for our faith, with our lives and all our resources, both our lives and our resources will be wiped out by our enemies. As to life, God gave it, and a coward is not likely to save it. It has happened again and again in history that men who tamely submitted to be driven from their homes although they were more numerous than their enemies, had the sentence of death pronounced on them for their cowardice, and they deserved it. But God gives further and further chances in His mercy. This is a lesson to every generation. The Commentators differ as to the exact episode referred to, but the wording is perfectly general, and so is the lesson to be learnt from it.