Those were the unbelievers who debarred you from the Sacred Mosque and prevented your offerings from reaching their destination. But for the fear that you might have trampled underfoot believing men and women unknown to you and thus incurred unwitting guilt on their account, [God would have commanded you to fight it out with them; but He ordained it thus] that He might bring whom He will into His mercy. Had the faithful stood apart from them, We would have sternly punished the unbelievers.