۞ Allah was well pleased with the believers when they swore allegiance unto thee beneath the tree, and He knew what was in their hearts, and He sent down peace of reassurance on them, and hath rewarded them with a near victory; 18 and they took many spoils, and Allah is the Almighty, and the Wise. 19 Allah has promised you abundant spoils that you will capture, and He has hastened for you this, and He has restrained the hands of men from you, that it may be a sign for the believers, and that He may guide you to a Straight Path. 20 And [He promises] other [victories] that you were [so far] unable to [realize] which Allah has already encompassed. And ever is Allah, over all things, competent. 21 And if those who disbelieve fight against you, they certainly would have turned their backs, then they would have found neither a Wali (protector) nor a helper. 22 That has been the Way of Allah already with those who passed away before. And you will not find any change in the Way of Allah. 23 And He it is Who restrained their hands from you and your hands from them in the vale of Makka, after He had made you superior to them; and Allah is of that which ye work ever a Beholder. 24 It was the disbelievers who kept you from the Sacred Mosque and prevented your sacrificial offering from reaching its proper place. God would not have kept you from fighting the disbelievers, had there not been believing men and women (among them) whom you did not know and whom you might have unknowingly harmed. God did this because He grants mercy to whomever He wants. Had they been distinguishable from the believers, We would certainly have punished them with a painful torment. 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