۞ Permission (to fight) has been granted to those for they have been wronged. Verily Allah has the power to help them: 39 those who have been driven from their homelands against all right for no other reason than their saying: "Our Sustainer is God!" For, if God had not enabled people to defend themselves against one another, all] monasteries and churches and synagogues and mosques - in [all of] which God's name is abundantly extolled - would surely have been destroyed [ere now]. And God will most certainly succour him who succours His cause: for, verily, God is most powerful, almighty, 40 [And they are] those who, if We give them authority in the land, establish prayer and give zakah and enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. And to Allah belongs the outcome of [all] matters. 41 AND IF THEY [who are bent on denying the truth] give thee the lie, [O Muhammad, remember that, long] before their time, the people of Noah and [the tribes of] Ad and Thamud gave the lie [to their prophets,] 42 So did the people of Abraham and the people of Lot, 43 and the inhabitants of Midian, to Moses they also belied. I respited the unbelievers, then I seized them, and how was My disapproval! 44 And many a township did We destroy, for they were oppressors – so they now lie flat on their roofs, and many a well lying useless and many a palace in ruins. 45 Have they not travelled through the land, and have they hearts wherewith to understand and ears wherewith to hear? Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind. 46 And [so, O Muhammad,] they challenge thee to hasten the coming upon them of [God's] chastisement: but God never fails to fulfill His promise - and behold, in thy Sustainer's sight a day is like a thousand years of your reckoning. 47 And how many a city did I give reins to, while it wronged itself, then took hold of it! and unto Me is the return. 48