His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

﴿When sleep overtakes you as a security from Him, and He sends down upon you from the heaven water to purify you with it and to remove from you the impurity of Satan and to strengthen your hearts and to make firm your feet﴾ ﴿When your Lord inspires the angels that I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike above the necks and strike from them every fingertip﴾

The operative word in "When" is the same operative word that worked in His saying: ﴿And when He promises you﴾ [Al-Anfal: 7] by the estimation of its repetition. This is because the sharing in the first operative word itself can only be by a conjunction. The intent is to enumerate His blessings, blessed and exalted is He, upon the believers on the day of Badr, and He said: "And remember when We did such and such."

(p-145) And Al-Tabari said: The operative word in "When" is His saying: ﴿And to bring tranquility﴾ [Al-Anfal: 10].

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And this, despite its possibility, has weakness in it. If the operative word in "When" were something close to what preceded it, it would have been preferable that it be "Wise" in "When" because the sending of sleep upon them and making it a security is wisdom from Allah, exalted and majestic is He.

Nafi' read: "Yughshiykum" with a damma on the ya and a sukoon on the ghain. This is the reading of Al-A'raj, Abu Hafs, and Ibn Nasah. And Asim, Hamzah, Ibn Amir, and Al-Kisai read: "Yughshiykum" with a fatha on the ghain and a shadda on the broken sheen. This is the reading of Urwah ibn Al-Zubair, Abu Rija', Al-Hasan, Ikrimah, and others. And Ibn Kathir and Abu Amr read: "Yaghshakum" with a fatha on the ya and an alif after the sheen. This is the reading of Mujahid, Ibn Muhaysin, and the people of Mecca. "Al-nu'asa" is read with a raised ending. The proof of those who read "Yaghshakum" is their consensus in the verse of (Uhud) on ﴿He covers a group of you﴾ [Al-Imran: 154]. And the proof of those who read "Yughshiykum" is that the speech comes consistent with "He sends down." The meaning of "Yughshiykum" is that He covers you with it and pours it upon you, and this is a metaphor.

And "al-nu'asa" is the lightest form of sleep, which can overtake a person while standing or walking. The stories of this verse indicate that they were merely drowsy in their heads. And the saying of the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him: "When one of you feels drowsy in his prayer," indicates this. And this is also indicated by the poet's saying:

؎ Drowsiness sought him, so it whispered ∗∗∗ In his eye is a nap, and he is not sleeping.

(p-146) And His saying: ﴿As a security﴾ is a source from 'amina' meaning a man feels safe, security, and safety. The 'h' in it is for the feminine of the source as it is in 'misa'a' and 'mashaqa'. Ibn Muhaysin read: "Amnata" with a sukoon on the mim. It was narrated from Abdullah ibn Mas'ud that he said: "Drowsiness at the time of battle is a sign of security from the enemy, and it is from Allah, and in prayer, it is from Satan."

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And this is the way of revelation, so it is undoubtedly that he supports it.

And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿And He sends down upon you from the sky water﴾ is also a reminder of this blessing in rain. Some of the commentators - and Al-Tabari narrated it from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, and others, and Al-Zajjaj said - that the disbelievers on the day of Badr reached the water of Badr before the believers and settled upon it, while the believers had no water. Their souls were troubled, they became thirsty, and they remained in a state of impurity and prayed in that condition. Some of them said to themselves - by the whispering of Satan to them -: 'We claim to be the allies of Allah while the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, is among us and we are in this state while the polytheists are at the water.' So Allah sent down rain on the night of Badr, the seventeenth of Ramadan, until the valleys flowed. The people drank, purified themselves, and watered the afternoon prayer. The mud that was between them and the polytheists became firm so that the feet of the Muslims were established during the battle, while before the rain, their feet would sink in it. When the rain fell, it became solid. They said: 'This is the meaning of His saying: ﴿To purify you by it﴾, meaning: from impurity ﴿and to remove from you the evil of Satan﴾, meaning: his punishment for you by his previous whispers. And the evil is: punishment. Abu Al-Aliyah read: 'evil' with a 's', meaning: his whispers that are hated and despised. Ibn Muhaisin read: 'evil' with a 'd' in the letter 'r'. Isa ibn Umar read: 'and He removes' with the 'b' being in the subjunctive mood. ﴿And to strengthen your hearts﴾, meaning: by energizing them, removing laziness from them, and encouraging them against the enemy. From this is their saying: 'the one who is steadfast in heart', meaning: the one who is stable in spirit during the battle. ﴿And to make firm the feet﴾, meaning: in the difficult terrain where walking was hard.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And the correct statement - which is the one in the biography of Ibn Ishaq and others - is that the believers reached the water at Badr first. In this is the statement of Hubab ibn Al-Mundhir Al-Ansari: 'When the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, settled at the first water, Hubab said to him: 'Is this by revelation, O Messenger of Allah, that this is the place, so we should not advance or retreat from it, or is it your opinion and strategy?'' The comprehensive narration is in the biography.

But the rain fell before their arrival at the water. This is because the people among the believers were afflicted with major impurities during their journey and they lacked water near Badr, so they prayed in that state. This caused a disturbance in their hearts, and Satan whispered to them regarding this, along with instilling fear in them from the multitude of the enemy and their killing, and this was before the sighting with the eyes. Also, there was a long distance of soft sand between them and the water of Badr, where the feet would sink. They anticipated that the disbelievers would reach the water of Badr before them, so they urged each other to reach it first. Then Allah sent down that rain, and the valleys flowed, so they bathed and Allah purified them, and the filth of Satan departed. The path became smooth, and the sand settled, making walking easy for them, and they were able to hurry until they reached the water first. It has been reported that what afflicted the polytheists from that rain itself made their path difficult. The believers were pleased and realized from Allah's action towards them that it was meant to assist them, so their souls became content, and they gathered and encouraged each other. This was the binding of their hearts and the firming of their feet on the soft sand, allowing them to reach the water before the polytheists.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

This is one of the meanings of His saying, the Most High: "and to firm the feet with it." The pronoun in "with it" in this interpretation refers to the water. It is also possible that the pronoun in "with it" refers to the binding of hearts, so the firming of the feet would be an expression of victory and assistance in the place of battle, and he clarified that the one who is steadfast has his feet firm when confronting terror.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And the descent of the water was at a time before the onset of drowsiness, and that is not related in the verse, as the intent therein is merely the enumeration of blessings. Abu al-Fath reported that al-Shabi read "and He sends down upon you from the sky what" with a silent alif, "to purify you with it," and he said: it means: that which.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And this is weak. Ibn al-Musayyib read: "to purify you" with a silent ta. And His saying, the Most High: "when your Lord inspired the angels"—the operative word in "when" is the first operative word on what preceded it. If we were to estimate it closely, His saying, the Most High: "and to firm" would be based on the interpretation of the pronoun returning to the binding, but as for returning it to the water, it would be troubling that "and to firm" operates in "when."

And the revelation of Allah to the angels is either by inspiration or by sending some to others.

And Isa ibn Umar read—differently from him—"Indeed, I am with you" with a kasra on the alif as a new beginning of the story, while the majority of the people read: "that I am" with a fathah on the alif as it is an object of "He inspires." The reason for the kasra is that the revelation means the saying.

And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿So be steadfast﴾ can mean to fight with them, as has been narrated. It can also mean to be present in their midst and to provide them with comfort by that. It can also mean: so strengthen them with comforting words that strengthen the heart. It has been narrated that some of the angels were in the form of humans. One of them would say to the believer next to him: 'I have been informed that the disbelievers said:

(p-151) He will come upon this ﴿above the necks﴾, firmly established. Ibn Qutaybah said: "Above" in this verse means: below. This is a clear mistake, and the confusion arose from his saying, glorified and exalted is He: ﴿a mosquito and what is above it﴾ [Al-Baqarah: 26], meaning: what is below it.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And "above" here does not mean below, rather what is intended is: what is above it in scarcity and smallness, so the meaning resembles below. And the term 'banaan': one group said it refers to the joints where they are among the limbs, so the meaning here is: "strike them in every place." Another group said: 'banaaan' refers to the fingers, and this is the correct saying. Based on this interpretation - and although striking in every place is permissible - the most effective places were intended, for when a fighter's finger is severed, he becomes incapacitated and cannot benefit from any of his limbs in struggle and combat.