۞ Certainly was Allah pleased with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you, [O Muhammad], under the tree, and He knew what was in their hearts, so He sent down tranquillity upon them and rewarded them with an imminent conquest 18 And spoils in abundance that they are taking. And Allah is ever Mighty, Wise. 19 Allah hath promised you abundant spoils that ye shall take, and these He hath hastened to you, and hath restrained the hands of people from you, that it may be a sign unto the believers, and that He may guide you to a straight path. 20 And He promiseth another victory, over which ye have as yet no power. Allah hath surely encompassed it; and Allah is over everything ever Potent. 21 And had those who disbelieve fought against you, surely they would have turned their backs, and then they would have found no patron nor helper. 22 such being God's way which has ever obtained in the past - and never wilt thou find any change in God's way! 23 And it is He Who restrained their hands from you, and your hands from them in the valley of Mecca, after having given you control over them; and Allah sees all what you do. 24 It was they who were bent on denying the truth, and who debarred you from the Sacred Mosque and who prevented your offering from reaching its place of sacrifice. And had it not been for the believing men and believing women [in Makkah] whom you might unwittingly have trampled underfoot, and on whose account you might have, unknowingly, become guilty, [God would have commanded you to fight it out with them; but He ordained it thus] so that He may bring whoever He will into His mercy. If they [the believers] had been clearly separated, We would have punished those who were bent on denying the truth with a painful punishment. 25 When the unbelievers fostered a sense of honour in their hearts, a sense of pagan honour, God sent down a sense of tranquility on His Apostle and the believers, and obliged them to an act of self-restraint, for they were deserving and worthy of it. God is cognisant of everything. 26