How can there be a covenant with Allah and with His Messenger for the Mushrikun (polytheists, idolaters, pagans, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) except those with whom you made a covenant near Al-Masjid-al-Haram (at Makkah)? So long, as they are true to you, stand you true to them. Verily, Allah loves Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V. 2:2). 7 How could God and His Messenger grant them (pagans) peace when if they were to acquire superiority over you, they would respect none of the peace treaties nor their kindred relations with you! They only try to please you by paying lip-service to you but their hearts are against you and most of them are evil-doers. 8 They have exchanged the signs of Allah for a small price and averted [people] from His way. Indeed, it was evil that they were doing. 9 Where believers are concerned, they respect no tie of kinship or treaty. They are people who overstep the limits. 10 Yet if they repent, and take to prayer, and render the purifying dues, they become your brethren in faith: and clearly do We spell out these messages unto people of [innate] knowledge! 11 And if they violate their oaths after their covenant and revile your religion, fight those leaders of infidelity - verily no oaths will hold in their case that haply they may desist. 12 Will you not fight a people who broke their oaths and purposed to expel the Messenger, beginning the first time against you? Are you afraid of them? You would do better to be afraid of God, if you are believers. 13 Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you (to victory) over them, heal the breasts of Believers, 14 and will remove the wrath that is in their hearts. And God will turn in His mercy unto whom He wills: for, God is all-knowing, wise. 15 Or did you suppose you would be left in peace, and God knows not as yet those of you who have struggled, and taken not -- apart from God and His Messenger and the believers -- any intimate? God is aware of what you do. 16