And certainly they were, meaning these who hastened to flee when they entered upon them in that state of being taken captive and the invasion of their sanctity. They had made a covenant with Allah, meaning the One who is greater than Him. And when the covenant may sometimes be long in duration and forgotten, that would be an excuse for its possessor. He clarified the closeness of its time after mentioning the greatness of the necessary covenant by mentioning it. So he said, affirming the connection: 'Before,' meaning before this situation and this invasion when the truthful promises regarding the conquests, which they now call, were pleasing to them when seriousness arose from what is conditioned by it from jihad, as a deception. 'They do not turn their backs,' meaning they do not approach their enemy, 'the backs,' meaning their backs, ever for anything. Nor will they have any action if the battle intensifies, and people mix, and the eyes redden, and the men trample over one another, and the champions embrace for victory or death. And when a person may take lightly the covenant due to the disregard of the one who made the covenant, he said: 'And the covenant of Allah,' meaning the fulfillment of the covenant of the One who encompasses the attributes of perfection. And when the covenant is a virtue in speech due to it being an action, and the concern for it intensified here, he clarified that by presenting it first and then making it the basis, and attributing the action to it second, so he said: 'Responsible,' meaning for fulfilling that which was established from him.