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XLVII, 39-XLVIII, 6. THE CHAPTER OF VICTORY.
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He were to ask you for it and to press you, ye would be niggardly, and he would bring your malice out.
[40] Here are ye called upon to expend in God's cause, and among you are some who are niggardly; and he who is niggardly is but niggardly against his own soul : but God is rich and ye are poor, and if ye turn your backs He will substitute another people in your stead, then they will not be like you.
THE CHAPTER OF VICTORY.
(XLVIII. Medinah.) In the name of the merciful and compassionate God.
Verily, we have given thee an obvious victory! that God may pardon thee thy former and later sini, and may fulfil His favour upon thee, and guide thee in a right way, and that God may help thee with a mighty help.
It is He who sent down his shechina into the hearts of the believers that they might have faith added to their faith ;-and God's are the hosts of the heavens and the earth, and God is knowing, wise-[5] to make the believers, men and women, enter into gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell therein for aye; and to cover for them their offences; for that with God is a grand bliss : and
Some of the commentators take this to mean sins committed by Mohammed before his call and after; others refer the word to the liaison with the Coptic handmaiden Mary, and to his marriage with Zainab the wife of his adopted son Zaid. See Introduction, pp. xxix and xl.
Or tranquillity; see Part I, p. 38, note 2.
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