And when he despaired of their piety due to what they encompassed of the repetition of the breach arising from the peak of envy, the hardness of their necks, the harshness of their hearts, and the hardness towards disbelief, he commanded him with what would weaken their strength and loosen their bonds by instilling despair through the descent of hardship, as is His custom, glorified and exalted is He, that He advises him to be gentle with some of the people, knowing that his action would flourish for his establishment on the best foundation. He said, confirming for the sake of what he was created ﷺ from the love of gentleness: "So if you encounter them," meaning: you meet them and gain victory over them,

"in war," meaning: which is such that the falsehood is driven away in it, and the truth prevails,

"then disperse with them those who are behind them," meaning: so punish them with a punishment that shatters and separates from your fight those behind them who are of the same opinion as them in opposing you, and do not leave them at all; for your followers are more skilled than them and more adept, thus they are more steadfast and capable. So if you inflict upon them that, no one will dare against you afterward, taking admonition from them and considering their state; and the root of "sharad" revolves around penetration. If it is with intent and a path, it is guidance and requires gathering, and if it is without a path and a gathering of uprightness, it is straying and scattering, meaning: stubbornness and it requires separation. Ibn Faris said: "The camel strayed" meaning it strayed, and "I caused it to stray" meaning I made it stray. As for His saying: "Then disperse with them," the intended meaning is punish them (p-311) and make them hear, Al-Qazzaz said: "I caused the man to stray" meaning I drove him away, and "I made him stray" meaning I made him hear and mentioned his faults to the people. And His saying, the Exalted: "Then disperse with them" means: make them dispersed. It has ended.

So the intended meaning is: to exaggerate in inflicting upon them, for when they are struck with a blow, they scatter in it without any direction or order of knowledge of those they have strayed to from behind them, that their terror has reached its peak, so he was terrified and fell into straying, either in strength or action. According to the reading of those who made "min" a preposition, the object would be omitted, and the estimation would be: inflict - with what you do to these from the terrifying matters - the straying in the place that is behind them with the straying of those in it, either in strength or action, by what they heard or saw of the state of these when they confronted you for battle. And according to the reading of those who made it a relative pronoun, it would be the object, thus the meaning: disperse those behind them from their places either by action or by strength, so that their hearts become separated by what you do to these, and they become - by what you see of their disgraceful state - receptive to straying. And the difference in meaning is due to the partiality in making "min" a preposition and the generality in making it a relative pronoun, considering the strength or action.

And when he mentioned the ruling, he mentioned its consequence with the tool of anticipation, managing it with hope. He said: "Perhaps they" meaning: the displaced and those displaced by them "will remember" what has preceded of the days of Allah, so they may know that these are His actions, and these are His men. This will benefit them so that they do not break a covenant after it. And indeed, he ﷺ did that with them. For if they were the Banu Qurayzah, he ﷺ struck them with a blow from which no informer escaped. Rather, he struck their necks in trenches in the market of Medina, and they were about seven hundred, all on one blood. Except for those who embraced Islam among them, and they were few. He took their children and women as captives and seized their wealth. And if they were the Banu Qaynuqa, he descended upon their territory after their breach and their showing the utmost contempt and obstinacy. Allah did not restrain them, so He placed them in His grip, and nothing remained except striking their necks, as had occurred with the Banu Qurayzah. Abdullah ibn Ubayy the hypocrite asked him about them and insisted on his matter, and he was familiar with him and sought to win him over. So he ﷺ left them for him and expelled them from Medina. Their incident was the first of the incidents of the Jews in Medina. And if they were the Banu Nadir, they also breached, so he surrounded them. The hypocrites deceived them, so Allah cast terror into their hearts. They asked him ﷺ to expel them and spare their blood, and he did so. Then Allah completed the matter for him concerning them in Khaybar and the valley of the villages and others, until he left no group of them in the Arabian Peninsula except that he struck them with humiliation and subjected them to disgrace and degradation. His incidents with them are well-known in the reports and recognized in the histories.