They question you concerning the spoils of war: they veiled themselves with their acts and so objected to the act of God and His Messenger, that is, God’s act as manifested in the locus of the Messenger. Accordingly they were commanded to guard against acts, in other words, to avoid them by seeing God’s act [therein] and to set things right [between themselves] by effacing the attributes of the souls, which are responsible for producing their acts, [acts] which necessarily bring about conflict and disagreement, so that they might return to mutual affection [towards one other] and love [for one another] that stems from the heart by the manifestation of the different types of attributes; and obey God and His Messenger, by the annihilation of its [the soul’s] attributes so that it might be easier for you to accept the matter with the volition of the heart, if you are believers’, with true faith.

Those who believe, with true faith, are only those who, when God is mentioned, [meaning] the mention of the attributes intended for the heart and not the mention of the acts intended for the soul, their hearts tremble, they are affected by conceptualising within themselves the tremendousness, splendour, vanquishing power, superiority and the radiation of the lights of the self-disclosures of those attributes, and when His verses are recited to them, that is, [when] His attributes are disclosed to them in the loci of speech, they increase their faith, true [faith] by making them rise from the station of knowledge to that of the source [of union], and who rely upon their Lord, that is, they rectify the station of trust by the annihilation of acts and wish for it at the station of the annihilation of the attributes, for the rectification of each station is completed by rising from it and inspecting it from a station above it.

Those who observe, the prayers of the presence of the heart by witnessing the attributes and rising through them by means of their self-disclosures, and who, from that with which We have provided them, in the way of the knowledge of trusting [in God] at the station of the annihilation of the acts, or the knowledge of the self-disclosures of the attributes by wayfaring in them, expend, by implementing them and effusing them upon those who deserve them.

Those, are the true believers, [believing] with true faith. For them are degrees with their Lord, in the way of the levels of the attributes and the meadows of the Gardens of the heart, and forgiveness, from the sins of the acts, and generous provision, in the way of the self-disclosures of the attributes and knowledge of these.

As your Lord brought you forth: in other words, this state, meaning, the state in which they are objecting to you, in terms of translocation, is like their objection when your Lord brought you forth [from your home], because they, having veiled themselves from the act of God with their acts, saw both acts as issuing from you and so were averse to your going forth just as they were averse to your being granted the spoils of war [by God]. Nor did they understand [the significance of] your Lord’s bringing you forth, from your home with the truth, that is, garbed in the truth, going forth with it and not with your soul. In this way bi’l-ḥaqq (‘with the truth’) is a circumstantial qualifier of the direct object of [the verb] akhrajaka (‘brough you forth’); or [it means] a going forth garbed in what is the correct action and wisdom.

They dispute with you concerning the truth, veiled as they are by their acts and attributes, after it, the state of that [truth], had become clear, disclosed as it was on your person, or [it means] after the vestiges of that [truth] had become clear to them formerly through miracles, or by your apprising of them that victory shall be theirs;

but God willed that the truth be realised by His words, that it [the truth] should be confirmed by means of His heavenly angels with whom He reinforced them.

When you sought help from your Lord, declaring that your might and strength was [not from you but] from Him and turning away from the veils of your acts by attaining certainty in that [the power to] effect and strength come from Him, neither from you, nor from your enemies; and He answered, your call at the instant of that disengagement from the garb of acts and the attributes of the soul, with [the statement]: ‘I shall reinforce you, from the world of angelic beings by virtue of the correspondence in terms of genus of your hearts with that [world] at that instant, with a thousand angels, with a world from the dominion of vanquishing, that is, with the heavenly faculties and their spiritual beings, which in that state [that you were now in] corresponded to your hearts, as was alluded to already in [sūrat] Āl ʿImrān [Q. 3:124-5]. As for the difference in the numbers [of angels] in these two instances, this is either because what is meant is the great multitude [involved] and not the specific number, or because His saying here: rank upon rank’, indicates that they are followed by another contingent of the same [angels]. As for their being reinforced [with these angels], this is either by their becoming embodied (tajassud) and imaginalised (tamaththul) in the forms of fighters, as for example when forms are imaginalised in dreams, such that they are awed by them, or by their effective and vanquishing powers reaching them such that they are destroyed and defeated.

And God did not appoint, that reinforcement, except, as a good tiding, for you, of victory and as reassurance for your hearts when they connect to it upon disengagement from the garb of the soul and its states. It is not that victory comes from it [the soul], for victory, comes only from God, but it is that [His] wisdom requires that [the sequence of] things are made dependent upon their causes; surely God, is powerful enough to bring assistance, victorious, Wise, doing that in accordance with the requirements of wisdom.

When He caused, the slumber of the calming of the corporeal faculties and the ego-centric attributes, to overcome you, by the sending down of the divine peace as security from God and as a reassurance; and sent down upon you, the, water, of the knowledge of certainty, from, the heaven of the spirit, to purify you thereby, from the wickedness of the whisperings of the soul and the murmurings of illusion, and to remove from you the evil, of the whisperings, of Satan, and his attempts to instill fear [in you], and to strengthen your hearts, that is, to fortify your hearts with the strength of certainty and to calm your agitation, and to make firm your feet, for valour and firmness of foot in the face of fear and mortal danger can only be through the strength of certainty.

When your Lord inspired the angels, [saying], ‘I am with you: in other words, He was reinforcing the angelic realm (malakūt) with the realm of divine power (jabarūt), so that they would come to learn from the world of divine power that God was assisting them, so make those who believe, in the contiguous strengthening [from heaven], stand firm. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the disbelievers, [and they experience terror] by virtue of the fact that they are severed from the heavenly reinforcement and divine strengthening and that doubt and the force of illusion have taken mastery over them, so smite above the necks: in other words, make them firm by instructing them in the meaning of this and encourage them by casting these words unto them, or by showing them this action on your part, as the reported narrative has it.

You did not slay them: He has instructed them in [divine] courtesy^{1The adab here is the courtesy which the wise person acquires in giving everything its due, particularly in acknowledging that creation and what takes place in it constitutes the manifestation of the attributes and acts of God. His taʾdīb of them is the instilling in them of that awareness. Cf. Chittick’s discussion of Ibn ʿArabī’s exposition of this concept (Chittick 1989: 175).} and guided them to the annihilation of [their] acts by dispossessing them of the acts and confirming these as God’s, exalted be He. As the Prophet was at the station of subsistence through the Truth, the act was ascribed to him in His words, when you threw, but then he is stripped of that act with [the words] you did not throw, confirming it instead as God’s with His words: but God threw, in order to fulfil the meaning of differentiation at the source of the union, so that the thrower might be Muḥammad [but] through God, exalted be He, and not through his own soul. No part of the act is ascribed to them since if they had acted it would have been through their own souls, and that He might try the believers with a fair test, that is, with a beautiful gift, namely, the affirmation of the unity of the acts, being the reason why He did that; surely God is Hearing, of the whisperings of your souls [when you say]: ‘We slew them!’, Knowing, that it is [in fact] He who is the slayer, even if the act should have been made manifest in you as loci;

and do not turn away from Him while you are listening, that is, do not turn away from Him even as you listen, since the effect of listening is understanding and believing in the truth [of what is being said], and the effect of understanding is volition and the effect of volition is obedience, and so it cannot be right to claim to be listening while [simultaneously] turning away, as the two cannot be combined. Therefore, adhere to obedience through volition if you are being truthful about your claims to be listening.

And do not be as those who, claim to listen but are not in fact [listening] at all, veiled as they are from understanding and acceptance, like beasts, nay, the worst of beasts in the eyes of God given what is mentioned [in Q. 8:22].

For had God known of any good in them, or any righteousness, that is, any preparedness to receive the perfection of their hearing, so that they might then understand, accept and be obedient [He would have made them hear]; and had He made them hear, despite the absence of any good in them, so that they came to understand, their understanding would [even then] have no effect in terms of [subsequent] volition and obedience, nay, they would have turned away quickly, since that understanding in them would be an accidental matter, something that would be quick to disappear, and not essential [in them]; being averse, in their essence, such that understanding and volition would not remain in them long, as the Commander of the Believers [ʿAlī], may God be satisfied with him, said, ‘Seek wisdom, even if it should be from the hypocrites, for wisdom keeps faltering in the breast of the hypocrite until it comes to rest alongside its companions in the breast of the believer’. In other words, it [wisdom] cannot fix itself in his [the hypocrite’s] breast since here it is accidental and does not correspond with his essence.

O you who believe, in the unseen, respond, through the cleansing and purification [of your souls], when He calls you to that which, gives life to your hearts in the way of true knowledge, or believe with the faith of verification; respond [to God] by wayfaring to God and in Him, when He calls you thereto in order to give you life thereby. That is [the meaning] if the response to God and to the Messenger is [intended as being] a single response. But if the two are separate, then it means: respond to God inwardly and through the works of the heart, and to the Messenger outwardly and through the works of the soul. Or, respond to God by annihilation in the union and to the Messenger by being mindful of the dues of differentiation when He calls you to be upright for the sake of that which will give you life in that [call] in the way of subsistence through God. All of that should be before the disappearance of preparedness, for God comes in between a man and his heart at the disappearance of preparedness and the actualisation of veils upon the accumulation of rust [on the heart]. So seize the opportunity and do not delay in responding; and that it is to Him that you shall be gathered, whereupon He will recompense you from His attributes and His Essence in accordance with your effacement and annihilation.

And guard against a trial, an idolatry and a veil, which, trial, would certainly not fall upon those among you who do evil, by eliminating [their] preparedness or diminishing it in order to use it where it does not belong, or to expend it for the sake of something other than the Truth, exclusively, by virtue of their being the evildoers alone. As for the meaning of ‘would certainly not fall upon’, it is proscriptive, in other words, if it should fall it would fall upon these exclusively, similar to where He says and no burdened soul shall bear the burden of another [Q. 6:164]. It is possible that the meaning might be that it would not fall upon them exclusively but would subsume them and others too by virtue of the evil of keeping company with them and the transfer of their vices to those who mix with them, as in where He says, exalted be He, corruption has appeared in the land and on sea because of what people’s hands have perpetrated [Q. 30:41]; and know that God is severe in retribution, by giving mastery to the dark configurations which their hearts have acquired over these [hearts] and veiling them from Him and chastising them therewith.

And remember when you were slight, in worth, by virtue of your ignorance and your being severed from the lights of knowledge, and oppressed in the land, the land of the soul, and were fearful lest men should snatch you away, that is, the men of the sensory of faculties because of the weakness of your souls, how He gave you refuge, in the [Medinese] city of knowledge, and reinforced you with His help, at the station of the affirmation of the unity of the acts, and provided you, with the good things of the knowledge of the self-disclosures of the attributes, that you might be thankful, for the grace of knowledge and the self-disclosures, by wayfaring in Him.

[O you who believe] do not betray God, by diminishing the former primordial covenant of affirming the Oneness [of God], and, betray, the Messenger, by diminishing [your] resolve and casting aside the subsequent compact, and betray your trusts, in the way of the gnoses and realities which God has deposited in you in accordance with the pre-eternal original preparedness, [betraying these] by hiding them behind the attributes of the soul, while you are aware, of the fact that you bear these [trusts], or while you are aware that treachery is the worst and most despicable of vices.

And know that your wealth and your children are a trial, that is, [they are] a veiling for you, by virtue of the fact that you are distracted thereby from God, or [that they are] a form of idolatry, because of the fact that you love them as you love God, and that with God is a tremendous wage, so seek this [wage] by disengaging from them and by being mindful of the dues of God in them.

[O you who believe] if you fear God, by avoiding the breaking of the covenant and the loosening of resolve and the hiding of the trusts and the love of wealth and children, so that you might be annihilated in Him, He will grant you a [means of] separation, a light by which to distinguish between truth and falsehood, [granted from] the stage of the Discriminating intellect (ʿaql furqānī), and absolve you of your evil deeds, that is, the deeds of your souls, and forgive you, your sins, that is, the sins of your essences, and God is of tremendous bounty, granting [you] the existence that is bestowed by the Truth and the Discriminating intellect.

But God was not about to chastise them, because chastisement is the form and effect of wrath and can only result from the wrath of the Prophet or from the wrath of God, [itself] caused by the sins of the community. The Prophet, peace be upon him, was the form of mercy, because of where He, exalted be He, says: And We did not send you except as a mercy to all the worlds [Q. 21:107], which is why when they [the Meccan enemy] broke his two front teeth, he [only] responded by saying, ‘O God, guide my people, for they do not know [what they do]’, and did not become wrathful, as did Noah, peace be upon him, when he said My Lord, do not leave from among the disbelievers a single dweller upon the earth [Q. 71:26]. Therefore his [Muḥammad’s] presence among them is protection [for them] against the sending down of chastisement [on them], as is the existence of forgiveness-seeking. Thus the principal cause for chastisement, given that the [simultaneous] existence of sin and forgiveness-seeking is a barrier to the accumulation of sin and to its become established — indeed, it necessarily brings about its disappearance — does not result in God’s wrath. And so as long as there is forgiveness-seeking among them, they will not be chastised.

But what [plea] have they now, that God should not chastise them: in other words, the fact that the chastisement is not sent down is not because they do not deserve it in terms of [the state of] their souls. Nay, they deserve [it] by their essences and because of their issuing forth [with sin] and their barring of those who are prepared from the station of the heart and for there no longer existing any goodness in them. But your presence and the presence alongside you of the believers seeking forgiveness among them is preventing it. Know that contingent existence follows where goodness prevails, because necessary existence is pure good. And so that whose good outweighs its evil has existence through His existence on account of the correspondence [between them] in terms of goodness. But where evil prevails that correspondence would no longer remains and this [evil] must then necessarily be exterminated and annihilated. Thus as long as they remain in [this] combined form, good will be prevalent among them and they will not deserve destruction through chastisement. But if they were to become separated [from the believers] their evil will be pure [of any good], in which case they will have to be destroyed, as was the case in the incident at Badr. From this the verification of the second meaning becomes manifest with regard to where He says And guard against a trial which would certainly not fall exclusively upon those among you who do evil [Q. 8:25], by virtue of evil prevailing over the combined group in this case. That is why the Commander of the Believers, peace be upon him: ‘In the earth there were two securities. One of these was removed, while the other remained. As for the one that was removed, this was the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace. As for the one that has remained, this is the seeking of forgiveness’, whereupon he recited this [above] verse; they bar from the Sacred Mosque: this is a conceptualisation of their act of barring and their turning away from its meaning, which is the heart, by residing with the soul and its attributes and of their barring from it of those who are prepared, by tempting them with ego-centric matters and the pleasures of physical nature; though they are not its guardians, by virtue of their remoteness from this attribute [of guardianship] and because the darkness of the soul has prevailed over them and its attributes have acquired mastery over them and because they have veiled themselves from this [sacred mosque] by the disbelief that they derive from religion. Its only [rightful] guardians are the God-fearing, who have guarded themselves against the attributes of the soul and its acts; but most of them do not know, that the House [of the Kaʿba] is the form of the heart, which is the House of God in reality and so only the God-fearing of the affirmers of Oneness deserve to be Its guardians and not the idolaters.

And know that whatever spoils you have taken, the fifth of it is for God, to where He says and God is severe in retribution [Q. 8:48] cannot be submitted to [allegorical] intepretation according to the way in which the event is mentioned therein. If you did wish to effect a [spiritual] correspondence [of this passage] to the differentiations of your existence, one might be able to say the following: And know, O spiritual faculties, that whatever spoils you acquire in the way of beneficial knowledge and the divine precepts on which Islam is founded, according to his [the Prophet’s] statement: ‘Islam is founded on five [things] …’ And so one fifth of that is for God — and that is the testimony that there is no deity except God and that Muḥammad is the Messenger of God, when considering the affirmation of Oneness at the [level of the] union — and for the Messenger of the heart; and for the kinsman, who is the innermost secret, and the orphans of the considerative and practical rational [faculty] and the faculty of disbelief; and the needy of the ego-centric faculties; and the traveller, who is the wayfaring soul which has entered into alienation ^{1Or ‘exile’; see Chittick’s discussion of this condition (1989: 267).} , procuring the waystations of the wayfaring, withdrawing far from its original resting-place, when considering the affirmation of Oneness at [the mode of] differentiation in the prophetic world. The remaining four fifths are divided among the limbs, the pillars and the natural faculties — if you believe, with true faith, in God, in the concentration (jamʿan), and that which We sent down upon Our servant on the Day of Discrimination, at the moment of separation, after the union, at the [level of] differentiation, the day the two armies met, [the two armies] of the two parties, that of the spiritual faculties and that of the ego-centric ones, upon the return to the witnessing of differentiation at the [level of] union.

When you were on the nearer bank, of the city of knowledge and the locus of the Discriminating intellect, and they were on the yonder bank, that is, in the lower aspect that is remote from the Truth and from the locus of knowledge, while the cavalcade of the distinguished natural faculties mounted upon the ego-centric faculties, was below you, that is, [below] the two parties; and had you agreed to meet, to do battle by means of the intellect and wisdom, instead of by means of spiritual discipline and the unity, you would have surely failed to keep meeting, by virtue of the fact that it would have been difficult in that case, necessarily bringing about failure and cowardice; but that God might conclude a matter that was to be done, [that] was predetermined, ascertained according to Him, whose eventuality was necessary. He did this, so that he who perished might perish after a clear proof, this [proof] being attached to the body that is necessarily perishing and imprinted on it, and so that he who survived might live after a clear proof, this being disengaged from him and conjoined to the world of the Holy, that is the core substance of real life and of everlasting subsistence.

When God showed them to you, O heart, in the dream-state of the inactivity of the outer senses and the tranquility of the corporeal faculties, [showing them to you] as being of little worth and feeble in [their] state, and had He shown them to you as many, in the state of the attributes of the soul being prevalent, you would have faltered and quarrelled, over the matter of breaking it [the soul] and vanquishing it, as each one of you is attracted to a [different] direction; but God saved [you], from faltering and quarrelling by means of His strengthening and protection [of you].

And do not be, like the disbelieving ego-centric faculties, who went forth from, the dwellings of their resting-places, their loci and bounds in recklessness and to show off to people and to feign stamina against the senses.

And when, the Satan of estimation, adorned their deeds for them, with [the false promise] that the kingdom of the heart and its faculties could be overcome, and said: ‘Today no person shall overcome you, illuding them [into believing] that their wish would be realised by showing them that there is none from among the men of the senses that shall overcome them and that likewise would be the case with all the other faculties, and I shall be your protector’, reinforcing you and fortifying you and fend off the men of the spiritual faculties from you. But when the two armies sighted each other, he turned his back in flight, sensing the state of the spiritual faculties and their power to overcome by virtue of his correspondence to these [spiritualities] in terms of [his capacity of] perceiving [their] meanings, saying, ‘I am quit of you, for I am not of your genus. I see, in the way of meanings and of the arrival of reinforcement to them from the heaven of the spirit and the angelic realm of the world of the Holy, what you do not see. Verily I fear God, as I sense some of His lights and His vanquishing, and God is severe in retribution’: herein is an allusion to the saying of the master of all messengers [Muḥammad], namely: ‘Each person has a devil, except that my devil submitted [to islam] at my hands’.

That is the instruction and the model [to be followed] in similar cases where a seeker wishes to effect a correspondence between the stories [of the Qurʾān] and his own states. However, I shall rarely repeat the like of this [intepretation] henceforth because other than conceptualising the path of wayfaring and having the initiate imagine what he faces [along this path] with a view to energising him to rise and ascend [through the states], there is little in the way of a useful lesson [therein]. And God is the Guide.

And if you could only see when the angels receive the disbelievers [at death]: the receiving at death [of souls] by the angels has already been mentioned, as has the fact that this only takes place in the case of those who are at the station of the soul. As for those who are disobedient and who have been overcome by the attributes of the soul, [attributes] such as wrath, rancour, passionate desire, covetousness and the like of these from among the despicable character traits, they will be received [at death] by the vanquishing angels and those of chastisement as corresponds to the configurations of their souls, beating their faces, for their having veiled themselves from the world of lights and having turned away therefrom and for the configurations in these [souls of theirs] of haughtiness, pride and arrogance, and [beating] their backs, for their inclination and extreme attraction to the body and the world of nature and for the configurations of passionate desire, covetousness and greed [that are in them], and [they say]: ‘Taste the chastisement of the Burning, that is, the burning of privation and the mastery held [over them] by the fires of [their] toil and pursuit, now forsaken, for that they had acquired those configurations which necessarily result in that [chastisement]. But if that person is from among the folk of obedience and those upon whom have prevailed the lights of the attributes of the heart, [attributes] such as tenderness, compassion, soundness and contentment and the likes of these from among the excellent qualities of the two faculties, the predatorial and the bestial, to the exclusion of the excellent quality of the rational-speech faculty, then in that case, he will be a person of the heart, [one] not at the station of the soul, [the likes of this person] will be received [at death] by the angels of mercy, while they are goodly, saying [to them], ‘Peace be upon you! Enter Paradise for what you used to do’ [Q. 16:32], because the configurations of their souls correspond to the spiritual beings of the world.

That is because God would never change a grace that He had conferred on a people, to the end [of the verse]: in other words, all that reaches man is [only] that which his preparedness entails and what he requests by the supplications of his state and by the requesting of is deserved [by him]. Thus when He confers upon a person an outward or an inward grace by virute of the soundness of [his] preparedness and the remainder of goodness in him, He does not change it until that [person] corrupts his preparedness and changes his receptivity for righteousness by veiling himself and by the transmutation of the good that is in him in potentiality into evil because of the actualisation of rust [on his heart] and the accumulation of darkness therein, such that there no longer remains in him any correspondence to good nor any possibility for it to issue from him, whereupon He will change that [grace] into a disfavour, as an act of justice and generosity from Him and in response to the demand made for it by that preparedness by virtue of the attraction in terms of genus and correspondence, and not out of any injustice or tyranny [on His part].

He it is Who strengthened you with His help and with the believers;

and reconciled their hearts, because of their concord in terms of orientation and their deliverance from the shackles of the attributes of the soul which necessarily entail backsliding and obduracy by virtue of their residing in the world of contrareity and the difference between them in terms of nature. For the heart, as long as it halts with the soul and its desires and [as long as] it has acquired mastery over it by its attributes, it will attract it down towards the lower aspect and will render its [the heart’s] goals particular in line with what corresponds to its best interests, such that it [the heart] ends up demanding what is forbidden it by another [heart], whereupon mutual enmity and hatred ensues [between them], and the irascible faculties that seek repute, honour, vanquishing power, victory, leadership and authority will then hold sway and haughtiness, obstinacy, pride and disdain will result, leading to a mutual boycots, alienation, warring and quarrelling. But every time it moves further away from the lower aspect by orienting itself towards the upper aspect and towards being illumined by the lights of unity of the attributes or that of the Essence, it [the heart] will rise higher from the station of the soul and will connect to the spirit and its goals will become universal, no longer being mutually exclusive or the object of rivalry, because of the possibility [now] of its being actualised for one [heart] without depriving another from it, and it [the heart] will then incline towards another with whom there is genus-correspondence in terms of purity, [inclining towards the other] with the love that derives from the essence because of the intensity of correspondence [between them]. The closer that it [the heart] is to the unity, the stronger the power of love in it, by virtue of its extreme propinquity to the one that follows its own religion, much like the radii that connect the circumference of a circle with its centre. Thus the intensity of affinity between these [hearts] is commensurate with the intensity of faith [in them]. Had you expended all that is in the earth, you could not have reconciled their hearts, because what is in the lower aspect [only] increases their mutual enmity and opposition by virtue of the intensity of their covetousness of, and their dogged rivalry over, it; but God reconciled their hearts, by means of the light of unity which bequeathes spiritual love and affinity of the heart. For love is the shadow of unity, mutual affinity the shadow of love, and justice the shadow of mutual affinity. Truly He is Mighty, with the power to repel the disbelievers and vanquish them by means of the coming together of the believers and their mutual harmony, Wise, doing that out of some wisdom in order to cast mutual affinity and love between these [believers] and [to cast] division and disagreement of opinion between those [disbelievers].

Truly those who believed and emigrated, to the end [of the verse]: in terms of [overall] import, this [verse] indicates that the poor person who offers services at a khanqah and a [specific] locale is not obliged to service the one who is resident [there] but the traveller, because of His saying: And those who believed but did not emigrate — you have no duty to make an alliance with them, that is to say, those who believed with cognitive faith and emigrated from all that is familiar in terms of relatives, children, property, causes and the abodes of the soul with the strength of resolve and have chosen to journey in exile, struggling with the power of certainty and trust [in God] by means of their wealth, by abandoning it and expending it in what satisfies God, and [struggling] with their souls by wearing them out through spiritual discipline and waging war against Satan, and by enduring the hardships of the journey for the sake of God and by expending these [souls] for the sake of religion with the intention of wayfaring to God. As for those who sheltered them [the wayfarers] by serving them at the home and assisted them by preparing for them the equipment that they need: those are allies of one another, by virtue of their mutual affinity and love; and those who believed, afterwards, but did not emigrate, from their familiar abodes, ‘you have no duty to make an alliance with them until they emigrate’ [Q. 8:72].