۞ INDEED, well-pleased was God with the believers when they pledged their allegiance unto thee [O Muhammad] under that tree, for He knew what was in their hearts; and so He bestowed inner peace upon them from on high, and rewarded them with [the glad tiding of] a victory soon to come 18 And many gains will they acquire (besides): and Allah is Exalted in Power, Full of Wisdom. 19 Allah has promised you many gains that ye shall acquire, and He has given you these beforehand; 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 other spoils you were not able to take; God had encompassed them already. God is powerful over everything. 21 And if those [Makkans] who disbelieve had fought you, they would have turned their backs [in flight]. Then they would not find a protector or a helper. 22 Such is Allah's Way that has come down from the past. Never shall you find any change in the Way of Allah. 23 And it is He who withheld their hands from you and your hands from them within [the area of] Makkah after He caused you to overcome them. And ever is Allah of what you do, Seeing. 24 They are the ones who disbelieved (in the Oneness of Allah Islamic Monotheism), and hindered you from Al-Masjid-al-Haram (the sacred mosque of Makkah) and the sacrificial animals, detained from reaching their place of sacrifice. Had there not been believing men and believing women whom you did not know, that you may kill them, and on whose account a sin would have been committed by you without (your) knowledge, that Allah might bring into His Mercy whom He will, if they (the believers and the disbelievers) should have been apart, We verily had punished those of them who disbelieved, with painful torment. 25 Whereas they who are bent on denying the truth harboured a stubborn disdain in their hearts - the stubborn disdain [born] of ignorance - God bestowed from on high His [gift of] inner peace upon His Apostle and the believers, and bound them to the spirit of God-consciousness: for they were most worthy of this [divine gift,] and deserved it well. And God has full knowledge of all things. 26