Tafseer of The Family of Imraan · Aal-i-Imraan · 3:13
Already there has been for you a sign in the two armies which met - one fighting in the cause of Allah and another of disbelievers. They saw them [to be] twice their [own] number by [their] eyesight. But Allah supports with His victory whom He wills. Indeed in that is a lesson for those of vision.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The exposition of His word: قَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ آيَةٌ فِي فِئَتَيْنِ الْتَقَتَا فِئَةٌ تُقَاتِلُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَأُخْرَى كَافِرَةٌ ("There was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met: one host fought in the way of Allah and another was disbelieving").
Abū Jaʿfar said: He, exalted be His praise, means by this: say, O Muḥammad, to those who disbelieve among the Jews who dwell amidst your land: "there was indeed for you a sign," that is to say: a token and an indication of the truth of what I say — that you will be overcome — and a lesson, as in:-
6673 - Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: "there was indeed for you a sign," a lesson and a reflection.
6674 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: Ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ something similar = except that he said: and something to ponder over.
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= "in two hosts," that is to say: in two groups and two parties = and "al-fiʾa" is the multitude of people = "that met" for battle, and one of the two hosts was the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and those who were with him of those who were present at the battle of Badr, and the other were the polytheists of the Quraysh.
= "one host fought in the way of Allah," a multitude that fights in obedience to Allah and upon His religion, and they are the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and his companions = "and another was disbelieving," and they are the polytheists of the Quraysh, as in:-
6675 - Abū Kurayb related to us, saying: Yūnus ibn Bukayr related to us, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, saying: Muḥammad ibn Abī Muḥammad, the client of Zayd ibn Thābit, related to me, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr or ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met: one host fought in the way of Allah," the companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ at Badr = "and another was disbelieving," the host of the disbelieving Quraysh.
6676 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Abī Muḥammad, the client of Zayd ibn Thābit, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr or ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās something similar.
6677 - Al-Qāsim related to us, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, on the authority of ʿIkrima: "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met: one host fought in the way of Allah," Muḥammad ﷺ and his companions = "and another was disbelieving," the Quraysh on the day of Badr.
6678 - Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid concerning His word: "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts," he said: in Muḥammad and his companions, and the polytheists of the Quraysh on the day of Badr.
6679 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Abū Ḥudhayfa related to us, saying: Shibl related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid something similar.
6680 - Al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, saying: al-Thawrī informed us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid concerning His word: "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met: one host fought in the way of Allah," he said: that was on the day of Badr, when the Muslims and the disbelievers met one another.
* * *
Abū Jaʿfar said: And "fiʾatun tuqātilu fī sabīli llāh" was put in the nominative, while before it had been said: "in two hosts," with the meaning: one of those two fights in the way of Allah — as a new inceptive clause (ibtidāʾ), as the poet said:
Thus was I like one with two legs: one leg sound, and a leg in which time so struck that it became paralyzed.
And as Ibn Mufarrigh said:
Thus was I like one with two legs: one leg sound, and a leg in which there is a defect from the vicissitudes.
As for the sound one, that is Azd Shanūʾa, and as for the paralyzed one, that is Azd ʿUmān.
And thus do the Arabs do with every repetition of a counterpart that preceded it, when there is, in the repeated term, a predication: they sometimes bring it back to the case-ending of the first, and at other times they begin it anew with the nominative, and they place it in the accusative — both with the complete verb and with the defective. And sometimes all of this is put in the genitive, as a bringing-back to the beginning of the utterance, as though, when one puts this in the genitive, one means: thus was I like one with two legs: like one with a sound leg and a sick leg. Likewise, the genitive is permissible in His word "fiʾatun," as a bringing-back to His word "in two hosts that met," [namely:] in a host that fights in the way of Allah.
And although this is permissible in Arabic, I do not permit the reading of it, on account of the agreement of the authoritative reciters upon the contrary of it. And had His word "fiʾatun" come in the accusative, that too would have been permissible, on the basis of His word "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met" — [in the sense of:] differing from one another.
* * *
The exposition of His word: يَرَوْنَهُمْ مِثْلَيْهِمْ رَأْيَ الْعَيْنِ ("they saw them as twice themselves with the seeing of the eye").
Abū Jaʿfar said: The reciters differed in the reading of it.
The reciters of Medina read it: ( تَرَوْنَهُمْ ) with the tāʾ, with the meaning: there was for you, O Jews, indeed آيَةٌ فِي فِئَتَيْنِ الْتَقَتَا , a host that fights in the way of Allah, and the other disbelieving — you see the polytheists as twice the Muslims with the seeing of the eye. He means thereby their admonition; He says: there is indeed for you a lesson, O Jews, in what you saw of the smallness of the number of the Muslims and the abundance of the number of the polytheists, and the victory of these despite their small number over those despite their abundant number.
* * *
And most of the reciters of Kūfa and Baṣra and some of the Meccans read it: ( يَرَوْنَهُمْ مِثْلَيْهِمْ ) with the yāʾ, with the meaning: the Muslims who fight in the way of Allah see the disbelieving multitude as twice the Muslims in number. The exposition of the verse according to their reading is therefore: there was for you, O community of the Jews, indeed a lesson and something to ponder over in two hosts that met, a host that fights in the way of Allah and another disbelieving: these Muslims see, despite their small number, these polytheists in their abundant number.
* * *
If someone were to say: "And what is the import of the exposition of the reading of him who reads that with the yāʾ? And which of the two hosts saw its counterpart as twice itself? Was it the Muslim host that saw the polytheistic one as its double, or was it the polytheistic one that saw the Muslim one thus, or did a third party see one of the two thus?"
The answer is: The exegetes differed concerning that.
Some of them said: the host that saw the other as twice itself was the Muslim host; it saw the number of the polytheistic host as twice the number of the Muslim host — Allah, mighty and exalted, diminished them in their eyes until they saw them as twice their own number; thereafter He diminished them in another state, so that they saw them as equal to their own number.
Mention of who said that:
6681 - Mūsā related to us, saying: ʿAmr related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī in a report he mentioned, on the authority of Murra al-Hamdānī, on the authority of Ibn Masʿūd: "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met, one host fought in the way of Allah and another was disbelieving, they saw them as twice themselves with the seeing of the eye," he said: this was on the day of Badr. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd said: we looked at the polytheists and we saw them twice our number; then we looked at them and we saw them not exceeding us by a single man, and that is Allah's word, mighty and exalted: وَإِذْ يُرِيكُمُوهُمْ إِذِ الْتَقَيْتُمْ فِي أَعْيُنِكُمْ قَلِيلًا وَيُقَلِّلُكُمْ فِي أَعْيُنِهِمْ [Sūrat al-Anfāl: 44] ("and when He made them appear few in your eyes when you met, and made you few in their eyes").
* * *
The meaning of the verse according to this exposition is therefore: there was for you, O community of the Jews, indeed آيَةٌ فِي فِئَتَيْنِ الْتَقَتَا : one of them Muslims and the other disbelieving, abundant in number the disbelieving, small in number the Muslim; the host that is small in number sees the one abundant in number as multiples — namely that it is more abundant in number by only one multiple — so that they see them as twice themselves. One of the two multiples is thereby the number that is equal to the number of the host that saw them, and the other multiple is the double that exceeds their number. This, then, is one of the two meanings of the diminishment of which Allah, mighty and exalted, informed the believers that He diminished them in their eyes.
And the other meaning of it is: the second diminishment, according to what Ibn Masʿūd said, namely that He showed them the number of the polytheists as equal to their own number, no more than they. That, then, is the second diminishment concerning which Allah, exalted be His praise, said: وَإِذْ يُرِيكُمُوهُمْ إِذِ الْتَقَيْتُمْ فِي أَعْيُنِكُمْ قَلِيلًا ("and when He made them appear few in your eyes when you met").
* * *
And others among the adherents of this view said: those who saw the polytheists as twice themselves were the Muslims. Except that the Muslims saw them as they were in their number, without their being diminished in their eyes; but Allah supported them with His aid. They said: and therefore Allah, mighty and exalted, said to the Jews: there was for you in them indeed a lesson — He instills in them thereby the fear that there should befall them at the hands of these the same as befell the people of Badr at their hands.
Mention of who said that:
6682 - Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to us, saying: my father related to me, saying: my uncle related to me, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: قَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ آيَةٌ فِي فِئَتَيْنِ الْتَقَتَا فِئَةٌ تُقَاتِلُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَأُخْرَى كَافِرَةٌ , this was revealed concerning the relief on the day of Badr; for the believers on that day were three hundred and thirteen men, and the polytheists were twice them, and Allah, mighty and exalted, revealed: "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met, one host fought in the way of Allah and another was disbelieving, they saw them as twice themselves with the seeing of the eye," and the polytheists were six hundred and twenty-six, and Allah supported the believers. That, then, was what concerned the relief for the believers.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: This transmission contradicts what the reports have transmitted, mutually reinforcing one another, concerning the number of the polytheists on the day of Badr. For the people differed concerning their number only in two ways.
Some of them said: their number was a thousand = and some of them said: between nine hundred and a thousand.
Mention of who said: "their number was a thousand":
6683 - Hārūn ibn Isḥāq al-Hamdānī related to me, saying: Muṣʿab ibn al-Miqdām related to us, saying: Isrāʾīl related to us, saying: Abū Isḥāq related to us, on the authority of Ḥāritha, on the authority of ʿAlī, he said: the Messenger of Allah ﷺ set out for Badr, and we were ahead of the polytheists thither, and we came upon two men there: one of them a man of the Quraysh and a client of ʿUqba ibn Abī Muʿayṭ. The Qurayshite escaped, but the client of ʿUqba we seized, and we began to say: how many are the people? And he said: they are, by Allah, numerous, fierce is their fighting prowess! And as soon as he said that the Muslims struck him, until they brought him to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He said to him: how many are the people? He said: they are, by Allah, numerous, fierce is their fighting prowess! The Prophet ﷺ did his utmost to make him say how many they were, but he refused. Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked him: how many camels do they slaughter? He said: ten every day. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: the people are a thousand.
6684 - Abū Saʿīd ibn Yūshaʿ al-Baghdādī related to me, saying: Isḥāq ibn Manṣūr related to us, on the authority of Isrāʾīl, on the authority of Abū Isḥāq, on the authority of Abū ʿUbayda, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh, he said: we took captive on the day of Badr a man of them — namely of the polytheists — and we said: how many were you? He said: a thousand.
* * *
Mention of who said: "their number was between nine hundred and a thousand":
6685 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, saying: Ibn Isḥāq said: Yazīd ibn Rūmān related to me, on the authority of ʿUrwa ibn al-Zubayr, he said: the Prophet ﷺ sent a number of his companions to the water of Badr to gather the news for him. They seized a water-carrier of the Quraysh: among them Aslam, the slave of Banū l-Ḥajjāj, and ʿArīḍ Abū Yasār, the slave of Banū l-ʿĀṣ. They brought them both to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to them both: how many are the people? They said: numerous! He said: what is their number? They said: we do not know! He said: how many do they slaughter every day? They said: one day nine, and the other day ten. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: the people are between nine hundred and a thousand.
6686 - Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, his word: "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met, one host fought in the way of Allah and another was disbelieving, they saw them as twice themselves with the seeing of the eye," that was on the day of Badr; the polytheists were a thousand or thereabouts, and the companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ were three hundred and some ten men.
6687 - Al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, saying: Maʿmar informed us, on the authority of Qatāda concerning His word: قَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ آيَةٌ فِي فِئَتَيْنِ الْتَقَتَا فِئَةٌ up to His word "with the seeing of the eye," he said: they were twice them; they killed seventy of them and took seventy captive, on the day of Badr.
6688 - Al-Muthannā related to us, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: Ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ concerning His word: "there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts that met, one host fought in the way of Allah and another was disbelieving, they saw them as twice themselves with the seeing of the eye," he said: that was on the day of Badr, and the polytheists were nine hundred and fifty, and the companions of Muḥammad ﷺ were three hundred and thirteen.
6689 - Al-Qāsim related to me, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, saying: Ibn Jurayj said: the companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ were three hundred and some ten, and the polytheists between nine hundred and a thousand.
* * *
Abū Jaʿfar said: All these whom we have mentioned contradict the statement that we have transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās concerning the number of the polytheists on the day of Badr. And since what those whose statement we have reported — among whom it is mentioned that their number exceeded nine hundred — [is correct], the first exposition that we have given, on the basis of the transmission that we have transmitted from Ibn Masʿūd, is the most suitable for the exposition of the verse.
* * *
And others said: the number of the polytheists exceeded nine hundred, but the Muslims saw their number otherwise than they were in reality by number. And they said: Allah showed the Muslims the number of the polytheists as small, as a sign for the Muslims. They said: Allah, mighty and exalted, meant by His word "they saw them as twice themselves" only those addressed in His word: قَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ آيَةٌ فِي فِئَتَيْنِ ("there was indeed for you a sign in two hosts"). They said: and they are the Jews, except that He passed from the address to the report concerning the absent third person, because it was a command from Allah, exalted be His praise, to His prophet ﷺ to say that to them; therefore it was fitting that He should address them at one time and report concerning them at another time in the manner of report, as He said: حَتَّى إِذَا كُنْتُمْ فِي الْفُلْكِ وَجَرَيْنَ بِهِمْ بِرِيحٍ طَيِّبَةٍ [Sūrat Yūnus: 22] ("until, when you are in the ships and they sail with them by a good wind").
And they said: if someone were to say to us: how then is it said "they saw them as twice themselves with the seeing of the eye," while you know that the polytheists on that day were three times the number of the Muslims?
We say to them: as the speaker says, while he possesses a slave: "I need twice that" — then you need him and his like — then he says: "I need twice his" [amount], then that is a report concerning his need for his like and for twice that like. And as the man says: "I have a thousand and I need twice that," then he needs three. For when he intended that the "thousand" be understood under the meaning of the "multiple," the "multiple" became two, and the two three. He — namely al-Farrāʾ — said: and the same applies in the expression: "I show you as yourselves," as though he said: I show you as your double = "and I show you as twice yourselves," that is to say: I show you as twice your double. They said: this, then, according to the meaning of three times their number.
* * *
And others said: no, the meaning of it is: that Allah showed the disbelieving host the number of the Muslim host as twice their own number.
And this too contradicts what the outward meaning of the revelation indicates. For Allah, exalted be His praise, said in His Book: وَإِذْ يُرِيكُمُوهُمْ إِذِ الْتَقَيْتُمْ فِي أَعْيُنِكُمْ قَلِيلًا وَيُقَلِّلُكُمْ فِي أَعْيُنِهِمْ [Sūrat al-Anfāl: 44] ("and when He made them appear few in your eyes when you met, and made you few in their eyes"), so He informed that of each of the two groups the number was diminished in the sight of the other.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And others read that: ( تُرَوْنَهُمْ ) with a ḍamma on the tāʾ, with the meaning: Allah shows them to you as twice themselves.
* * *
Abū Jaʿfar said: And the most suitable of these readings to be correct is the reading of him who reads "yarawnahum" with the yāʾ, with the meaning: and another disbelieving, [which] the Muslims see as twice themselves — that is to say: twice the number of the Muslims, on account of Allah's diminishing them in their eyes in one state, so that their estimation of them was thus; thereafter He diminished them in their eyes relative to the first diminishment, so that they estimated them as equal to the number of the Muslims; thereafter a third diminishment, so that they estimated them as fewer than the number of the Muslims, as in:-
6690 - Abū Saʿīd al-Baghdādī related to me, saying: Isḥāq ibn Manṣūr related to us, on the authority of Isrāʾīl, on the authority of Abū Isḥāq, on the authority of Abū ʿUbayda, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh, he said: indeed, they were diminished in our eyes on the day of Badr, until I said to a man beside me: would you estimate them at seventy? He said: I estimate them at a hundred. He said: then we took captive a man of them and we said: how many were you? He said: a thousand.
* * *
And it is transmitted from Qatāda that he used to say: had it been "tarawnahum," it would have been "mithlaykum" ("as twice yourselves").
6691 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥammād related to me, on the authority of Ibn al-Mubārak, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatāda that.
* * *
Abū Jaʿfar said: In the two reports that we have transmitted from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd it is clearly set forth how the estimation of the Muslims on that day of the number of the polytheists differed at the different times. Thus Allah, mighty and exalted, informed the Jews — concerning what there was of the difference in the states of their number in the eyes of the Muslims — as it [appeared] to them, while the Jews knew the extent of the number of both hosts — as a communication from Him to them that He supports the believers with His aid, so that they should not be deluded by their number and their fighting prowess, and so that they should beware lest He should make befall them at the hands of the believers the same chastisement as that which befell the polytheists of the Quraysh at Badr at their hands.
* * *
As for His word "raʾya l-ʿayn," that is the maṣdar of "raʾaytuhu"; one says: "raʾaytuhu raʾyan wa-ruʾyatan," and "I saw in sleep a good ruʾyā," [whereby ruʾyā] is not inflected. One says: "he is from me raʾya l-ʿayn and riʾāʾa l-ʿayn," with the accusative and the nominative, by which is meant: where my gaze falls upon him, and it is of that [namely] of "al-raʾy" a counterpart. And "the people are riʾāʾun" when they sit where they can see one another.
* * *
The meaning of it is therefore: they see them — where their gazes reach them and their eyes see them — as twice themselves.
* * *
The exposition of His word: وَاللَّهُ يُؤَيِّدُ بِنَصْرِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَعِبْرَةً لِأُولِي الْأَبْصَارِ (13) ("and Allah supports with His aid whom He wills; truly, in that is indeed a lesson for the people of insight").
Abū Jaʿfar said: He means by His word, exalted be His praise: "and Allah supports (yuʾayyidu)," [that is:] He strengthens = "with His aid whom He wills."
* * *
= [This is] from the statement of the speaker: "I supported (ayyadtu) so-and-so with such-and-such," when one has strengthened and aided him, "fa-anā uʾayyiduhu taʾyīdan." And the triliteral form (faʿaltu) of it is: "idtuhu fa-anā aʾīduhu aydan," and of that is the word of Allah, mighty and exalted: وَاذْكُرْ عَبْدَنَا دَاوُدَ ذَا الْأَيْدِ [Sūrat Ṣād: 17] ("and remember Our servant Dāwūd, the possessor of strength"), that is to say: the possessor of strength.
* * *
Abū Jaʿfar said: And the exposition of the utterance is: there was for you = O community of the Jews, in two hosts that met, one of them fighting in the way of Allah and another disbelieving, whom the Muslims saw as twice themselves with the seeing of their eyes, whereupon We supported the Muslim one — while their number was small — against the disbelieving one — while their number was abundant — until they prevailed over them = [a sign from which to draw] a lesson and to ponder over, and Allah strengthens with His aid whom He wills.
* * *
And He said, exalted be His praise: "truly, in that," that is to say: truly, in what We did with these whose affair We have described — of Our support of the Muslim host despite the smallness of its number, against the disbelieving host despite the abundance of its number = "is indeed a lesson," that is to say: indeed something to ponder over and an admonition for him who has understanding and takes heed and thereby perceives the truth, as in:-
6692 - Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: "truly, in that is indeed a lesson for the people of insight," he says: there was for them in these indeed a lesson and a reflection; Allah supported them and aided them against their enemy.
6693 - Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: Ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ something similar.
