۞ Certainly Allah was well pleased with the believers when they swore allegiance to you under the tree, and He knew what was in their hearts, so He sent down tranquillity on them and rewarded them with a near victory, 18 and with many future gains -- God is mighty and wise. 19 Allah has promised you plenty of booty which you will take, and has bestowed this to you quickly, and restrained peoples’ hands from you; and in order that it may be a sign for the believers, and to guide you on the 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 Had the unbelievers fought against you at that time, they would have turned their backs (in flight), and would have found none to protect or help them. 22 [This is] the established way of Allah which has occurred before. And never will you find in the way of Allah any change. 23 It is He who restrained their hands from you, and your hands from them, in the hollow of Mecca, after that He made you victors over them. God sees the things you do. 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