And when We said to you, 'Indeed, your Lord has encompassed the people,' and remember when We revealed to you that your Lord has encompassed Quraysh, meaning: We gave you glad tidings of the Battle of Badr and the victory over them. This is the meaning of His saying, 'The multitude will be defeated and they will turn their backs.' Say to those who disbelieve, 'You will be defeated and gathered.' And other than that, He made it as if it had already occurred. He said: 'He has encompassed the people' in accordance with His usual manner of informing. And when the two groups met on the day of Badr, and the Prophet ﷺ was in the canopy with Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu, he was praying and saying: 'O Allah, I ask You for Your covenant and promise.' Then he came out wearing his armor, encouraging the people and saying, 'The multitude will be defeated and they will turn their backs.' [I did not find it exactly like this, but as for the beginning, it is in Sahih al-Bukhari from Ikrimah from Ibn Abbas that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said while in his tent on the day of Badr: 'O Allah, I invoke Your covenant and promise. O Allah, I invoke Your covenant and promise. O Allah, if You destroy this group, they will not worship after today.' Abu Bakr took his hand and said: 'That is enough.' Then he came out saying: 'The multitude will be defeated and they will turn their backs.'] And perhaps Allah, the Exalted, showed him their deaths in his dream, for he used to say when he arrived at the water of Badr, 'By Allah, I can see the deaths of the people.' [Muslim narrated from the hadith of Anas, who said the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: 'This is the place of so-and-so,' and he placed his hand on the ground here. No one moved away from the place of his hand.] He was pointing to the ground and saying: 'This is the place of so-and-so, this is the place of so-and-so.' Quraysh heard about what was revealed to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ regarding the matter of the day of Badr and what he saw in his dream of their deaths, so they laughed and mocked and hastened to him in derision. And when they heard his words: 'Indeed, the tree of Zaqqum is the food of the sinful,' [Mawlana said: 'Their fascination with the tree was that when they heard his words, 'Indeed, the tree of Zaqqum... etc.'] Ahmad said: 'The basis of this is that fire does not have an effect of burning in anything, but Allah, the Exalted, has made it a habit that He creates burning when fire meets certain bodies. If that is an act of Allah and not an act of fire, then Allah has the right not to cause burning in the tree that is at the root of Hellfire.'] They made it a mockery and said: 'Indeed, Muhammad claims that Hellfire burns stones, then he says a tree grows in it.' How little did they regard Allah! Who said that? And how did they deny that Allah could create a tree from a type that fire does not consume! This is the hair of the salamander, which is a creature in the land of the Turks from which they make handkerchiefs. If it becomes dirty, it is thrown into the fire, and the dirt goes away while the handkerchief remains safe, unaffected by the fire. And you see the ostrich swallowing embers and pieces of iron that are red like embers from the heat of the fire, and it does not harm them. Closer than that, He created in every tree a fire that does not burn it. So how did they deny that He could create [the phrase 'So how did they deny that He could create' is the wording of al-Nasafi: 'It is permissible that He creates.'] in the fire a tree that does not burn it. The meaning is that the signs are only sent as a warning to the servants, and these people were warned by the punishment of this world, which is death on the day of Badr. So what We showed you of it in your dream after the revelation to you was nothing but a trial for them, as they took it mockingly and were warned of the punishment of the Hereafter and the tree of Zaqqum, but it had no effect on them. Then He said about them: 'And We frighten them,' meaning We frighten them with the fears of this world and the Hereafter, 'but their fright only increases them in great transgression.' How can a people fear this when they are the ones who propose the signs? And it was said: 'The vision is the Isra' [He returned to his words. He said: 'As for the vision, it was said to be the Isra', and those who made it a dream are connected to this verse. And it was said: 'It is only called a vision according to the claim of the disbelievers... etc.' Ahmad said: 'This is far from the saying of Allah: 'Its fruit is as if it were the heads of devils,' and His saying: 'Indeed, they will surely eat from it.' Allah knows best.] And this is what those who say: 'The Isra' was in a dream cling to, while those who say: 'It was in wakefulness' interpret the vision as sight. And it was said: 'It is only called a vision according to the words of the disbelievers when they said to him: 'Perhaps it was a vision you saw, or it was an illusion that was imagined to you,' as a way of dismissing it, just as He named things by their names among the disbelievers, like His saying: 'He turned to their gods, saying: Where are my partners? Taste! Indeed, you are the mighty and honorable.' And it was said: 'It is his vision that he will enter Mecca.' And it was said: 'He saw in a dream that the children of al-Hakam were taking turns on his pulpit as children take turns with a ball.' If you ask: Where is the cursing of the tree of Zaqqum in the Qur'an? I would say: It is cursed where its eaters among the disbelievers and the wrongdoers are cursed, for the tree has no sin to be cursed in reality. It is only described as cursed due to the curse of its eaters in a figurative sense. And it was said: 'Allah described it with cursing because cursing is being distanced from mercy, and it is in the root of Hellfire, in the farthest place from mercy.' And it was said: 'The Arabs say for every harmful, disliked food: cursed.' And I asked some of them, and he said: 'Yes, the cursed food is the harmful mixture.' [The phrase 'the cursed food is the harmful mixture' refers to a harmful mixture that is mixed with food or drink like poison. And the mixture is the dissolved one until its essence is gone. This was explained in the dictionaries. In it is 'the kashuth,' a plant that clings to the branches of trees without being rooted in the ground, as the poet said:

It is the kashuth, so there is no root and no foliage... and no breeze and no shade and no fruit. (A) And from Ibn Abbas: It is the kashuth that twists around the tree which is used in drinks. And it was said: Abu Jahl. And it was recited: 'and the accursed tree' in the nominative, as if it were a subject with a missing predicate, as if it were said: 'and the accursed tree in the Qur'an is likewise.'