Al-Ahzab · Madani · ayah 15 of 73

Al-Ahzab 33:15

وَلَقَدْ كَانُوا۟ عَـٰهَدُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ مِن قَبْلُ لَا يُوَلُّونَ ٱلْأَدْبَـٰرَ ۚ وَكَانَ عَهْدُ ٱللَّهِ مَسْـُٔولًا

“And they had already promised Allāh before not to turn their backs [i.e., flee]. And ever is the promise to Allāh [that about which one will be] questioned.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They had already pledged to Allah never to turn their backs, and a pledge made to Allah is one He will ask about.

A reflection

The same sentence, kept and broken

One early explanation of this covenant is startling. Some men, it says, had missed the Battle of Badr. They saw the honour Allah gave to those who fought there, and they said: if Allah lets us witness a battle, we will fight. Then the battle came to them, at the edge of Madina, and they asked to go home.

Now hear another man who said almost exactly the same sentence. Sahih al-Bukhari records that Anas ibn al-Nadr also missed Badr. He said to the Prophet ﷺ: I was absent from the first battle you fought. If Allah lets me witness a battle against them, Allah will see what I do.

At Uhud the Muslim lines broke. Anas ibn al-Nadr stood forward. O Allah, he said, I apologise to You for what these have done, meaning his own side who fled. Then he met Saʿd ibn Muʿadh and told him he could smell the scent of Paradise beyond Uhud. He was found afterwards with more than eighty wounds. His nephew said they used to think 33:23 was revealed about him and those like him.

Two groups. One sentence: if Allah lets us witness it. One group's sentence became a covenant written in their own blood. The other's became evidence against them, recited in this ayah for fourteen centuries.

What separated them was not the words. It was what the words were tied to. For Anas, the promise was tied to Allah, who would 'see what I do'. For the others, it seems, the promise was tied to a feeling: envy of Badr's glory, the warmth of an imagined victory.

Promises tied to feelings dissolve when the feeling changes. Promises tied to Allah survive the feeling, because He does not change.

Think of something you have promised Allah in a moment of warmth. A prayer you would never miss, a habit you would drop, a person you would forgive. Ask what that promise is tied to now: a feeling that has faded, or the One who sees what you do.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.