Life-of-Muhammad

92Life of Muhammad sathe hypocrites, and those in whose hearts was a diseasesaid, 'Allah and His Messenger promised us nothing butdelusion'. And when a party of them said, 'O people ofYathrib, you have possibly no stand against the enemy,therefore turn back' (33: 11-14).Here Muslims are reminded how they were attackedfrom the front by a confederacy of Arab tribes, and inthe rear by the Jews. They are reminded how miserablethey were at that time. Their eyes flinched and theirhearts were in their mouths. They even began toentertain doubts about God. The believers were then ontrial. They were all given a shaking. The hypocrites andthe spiritually diseased began to say, 'We have all beenfooled by false promises made to us by God and HisProphet sa !' A party of them even began to unnerve theMuslim force saying, 'There is no fighting now. There isnothing to do but to go back.'How true believers behaved on this occasion is alsodescribed in the Qur’an:And when the believers saw the confederates, they said,'This is what Allah and His Messenger sa promised us; andAllah and His Messenger ra spoke the truth.' And it onlyincreased them in faith and submission. Among thebelievers are men who have been true to the covenant theyhad made with Allah. There are some of them who havefulfilled their vow, and some who still wait, and they havenot changed their condition in the least (33: 23, 24).The true believers, that is to say, were unlike thehypocrites and the weak. When they saw the hugenumbers of the enemy, they were reminded of what Godand His Prophet sa had told them already. This concertedattack by the tribes of Arabia was proof only of the truthof God and the Prophet sa . The true believers remainedunshaken. Rather they increased in the spirit ofobedience and in the fervour of faith. The true believersstood by their compact with God. Some of them hadalready attained to the goal of their lives by meeting