130وَإِذا بَطَشتُم بَطَشتُم جَبّارينَMuhammad AsadAnd will you [always], whenever you lay hand [on others], lay hand [on them] cruelly, without any restraint?1The term jabbar, when applied to man, as a rule denotes one who is haughty, overbearing, exorbitant and cruel, and does not submit to any moral restraints in his dealings with those who are weaker than himself. Sometimes (as, e.g., in 11:59 or 14:15) this term is used to describe a person's negative ethical attitude, and in that case it may be rendered as "enemy of the truth". In the present instance, however, stress is laid on the tyrannical behaviour of the tribe of 'Ad, evidently relating to their warlike conflicts with other people: and in this sense it expresses a Qur'anic prohibition, valid for all times, of all unnecessary cruelty in warfare, coupled with the positive, clearly-implied injunction to subordinate every act of war - as well as the decision to wage war as such - to moral considerations and restraints.