﴿They think﴾ that is, they assume due to the weakness of their minds in this situation, and fear has gone away, due to their extreme cowardice and what has settled in them of fear. ﴿The Confederates﴾ and you have known that they went ﴿They did not go﴾ rather they disappeared deceitfully. He expressed it with 'thinking' because, as has been mentioned from Al-Hirali in Al-Baqarah, what occurs in his dominance is of the type that human beings are created upon and it has become customary for them. The assumption in what is known and taken by evidence and knowledge, he said: the weakness of a scholar's knowledge is assumption, and the weakness of a rational person's mind is thinking.

And when he informed about their condition in their departure, he informed about their condition if what they fear were to happen from their return. He said expressing with a tool of doubt as a sign for the people of insight that it is in the realm of impossibility: ﴿And if the Confederates come﴾ that is, after they have gone ﴿They would wish﴾ that is, they would have a renewed desire from cowardice and extreme fear ﴿If only they were in the desert﴾ that is, acting as those who dwell in the desert, in a state of settling and departing. ﴿Among the Bedouins﴾ those who are in a state of deficiency with them, and among whom their companionship is disliked, even if their wish for them at that time is impossible; then he mentioned the state of the doers of 'being in the desert' and said: ﴿They ask﴾ at all times ﴿About your great news﴾ with them, following what they are upon of hypocrisy to keep for them a face with you, as if they are concerned about you, showing by that a burning desire for their absence from this war [or to hide their absence and show that they were among you in the war by indicating that it happened for you at such a time or in such a place, and they boast about that without any shame] because hypocrisy has become a character for them that they cannot detach from. And this meaning is indicated by the reading of Ya'qub 'They ask' with emphasis. ﴿And if﴾ that is, while the case is that if they ﴿Were with you﴾ that is, present for your war ﴿They would not have fought﴾ that is, with you ﴿Except for a little﴾ hypocrisy as they did before the departure of the Confederates from their presence with you at times and their seeking permission to return to their homes at other times, and the hindrance of others by action once, and the declaration by words at another.