بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful
يَسْـَٔلُونَكَ عَنِ ٱلْأَنفَالِ ۖ قُلِ ٱلْأَنفَالُ لِلَّهِ وَٱلرَّسُولِ ۖ فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَأَصْلِحُوا۟ ذَاتَ بَيْنِكُمْ ۖ وَأَطِيعُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥٓ إِن كُنتُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ
They ask you concerning the anfaal. Say, ‘The anfaal belong to Allah and the Apostle.’ So be wary of Allah and settle your differences, and obey Allah and His Apostle, should you be faithful.
إِنَّمَا ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ ٱلَّذِينَ إِذَا ذُكِرَ ٱللَّهُ وَجِلَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ وَإِذَا تُلِيَتْ عَلَيْهِمْ ءَايَٰتُهُۥ زَادَتْهُمْ إِيمَٰنًۭا وَعَلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ يَتَوَكَّلُونَ
The faithful are only those whose hearts tremble [with awe] when Allah is mentioned, and when His signs are recited to them, they increase their faith, and who put their trust in their Lord,
ٱلَّذِينَ يُقِيمُونَ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَمِمَّا رَزَقْنَٰهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ
maintain the prayer and spend out of what We have provided them.
أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ حَقًّۭا ۚ لَّهُمْ دَرَجَٰتٌ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ وَمَغْفِرَةٌۭ وَرِزْقٌۭ كَرِيمٌۭ
It is they who are truly the faithful. They shall have ranks near their Lord, forgiveness and a noble provision.
كَمَآ أَخْرَجَكَ رَبُّكَ مِنۢ بَيْتِكَ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَإِنَّ فَرِيقًۭا مِّنَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ لَكَٰرِهُونَ
As your Lord brought you out from your home with a just cause, a part of the faithful were indeed reluctant.
يُجَٰدِلُونَكَ فِى ٱلْحَقِّ بَعْدَمَا تَبَيَّنَ كَأَنَّمَا يُسَاقُونَ إِلَى ٱلْمَوْتِ وَهُمْ يَنظُرُونَ
They disputed with you concerning the truth after it had become clear, as if they were being driven towards death as they looked on.
وَإِذْ يَعِدُكُمُ ٱللَّهُ إِحْدَى ٱلطَّآئِفَتَيْنِ أَنَّهَا لَكُمْ وَتَوَدُّونَ أَنَّ غَيْرَ ذَاتِ ٱلشَّوْكَةِ تَكُونُ لَكُمْ وَيُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ أَن يُحِقَّ ٱلْحَقَّ بِكَلِمَٰتِهِۦ وَيَقْطَعَ دَابِرَ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ
When Allah promised you [victory over] one of the two companies, [saying], ‘It is for you,’ you were eager that it should be the one that was unarmed. But Allah desires to confirm the truth with His words, and to root out the faithless,
لِيُحِقَّ ٱلْحَقَّ وَيُبْطِلَ ٱلْبَٰطِلَ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ ٱلْمُجْرِمُونَ
so that He may confirm the truth and bring falsehood to naught, though the guilty should be averse.
إِذْ تَسْتَغِيثُونَ رَبَّكُمْ فَٱسْتَجَابَ لَكُمْ أَنِّى مُمِدُّكُم بِأَلْفٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلْمَلَٰٓئِكَةِ مُرْدِفِينَ
When you appealed to your Lord for help, He answered you: ‘I will aid you with a thousand angels in a file.’
وَمَا جَعَلَهُ ٱللَّهُ إِلَّا بُشْرَىٰ وَلِتَطْمَئِنَّ بِهِۦ قُلُوبُكُمْ ۚ وَمَا ٱلنَّصْرُ إِلَّا مِنْ عِندِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ
Allah did not appoint it but as a good news, and to reassure your hearts. Victory comes only from Allah. Indeed Allah is all-mighty, all-wise.
إِذْ يُغَشِّيكُمُ ٱلنُّعَاسَ أَمَنَةًۭ مِّنْهُ وَيُنَزِّلُ عَلَيْكُم مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءًۭ لِّيُطَهِّرَكُم بِهِۦ وَيُذْهِبَ عَنكُمْ رِجْزَ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنِ وَلِيَرْبِطَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِكُمْ وَيُثَبِّتَ بِهِ ٱلْأَقْدَامَ
When He covered you with a trance as a [sense of] security from Him, and He sent down water from the sky to purify you with it, and to repel from you the defilement of Satan, and to fortify your hearts, and to make [your] feet steady with it.
إِذْ يُوحِى رَبُّكَ إِلَى ٱلْمَلَٰٓئِكَةِ أَنِّى مَعَكُمْ فَثَبِّتُوا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ۚ سَأُلْقِى فِى قُلُوبِ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ ٱلرُّعْبَ فَٱضْرِبُوا۟ فَوْقَ ٱلْأَعْنَاقِ وَٱضْرِبُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ كُلَّ بَنَانٍۢ
Then your Lord signaled to the angels: ‘I am indeed with you; so steady the faithful. I will cast terror into the hearts of the faithless. So strike their necks, and strike their every limb joint!’
ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ شَآقُّوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ ۚ وَمَن يُشَاقِقِ ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ شَدِيدُ ٱلْعِقَابِ
That, because they defied Allah and His Apostle. And whoever defies Allah and His Apostle, Allah is indeed severe in retribution.
ذَٰلِكُمْ فَذُوقُوهُ وَأَنَّ لِلْكَٰفِرِينَ عَذَابَ ٱلنَّارِ
‘Taste this, and [know] that for the faithless is the punishment of the Fire.’
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِذَا لَقِيتُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ زَحْفًۭا فَلَا تُوَلُّوهُمُ ٱلْأَدْبَارَ
O you who have faith! When you encounter the faithless advancing [for battle], do not turn your backs [to flee] from them.
وَمَن يُوَلِّهِمْ يَوْمَئِذٍۢ دُبُرَهُۥٓ إِلَّا مُتَحَرِّفًۭا لِّقِتَالٍ أَوْ مُتَحَيِّزًا إِلَىٰ فِئَةٍۢ فَقَدْ بَآءَ بِغَضَبٍۢ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ وَمَأْوَىٰهُ جَهَنَّمُ ۖ وَبِئْسَ ٱلْمَصِيرُ
Whoever turns his back [to flee] from them that day—unless [he is] diverting to fight or retiring towards another troop—shall certainly earn Allah’s wrath, and his refuge shall be hell, an evil destination.
فَلَمْ تَقْتُلُوهُمْ وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ قَتَلَهُمْ ۚ وَمَا رَمَيْتَ إِذْ رَمَيْتَ وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ رَمَىٰ ۚ وَلِيُبْلِىَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ مِنْهُ بَلَآءً حَسَنًا ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌۭ
You did not kill them; rather, it was Allah who killed them; and you did not throw when you threw, rather, it was Allah who threw, that He might test the faithful with a good test from Himself. Indeed Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing.
ذَٰلِكُمْ وَأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ مُوهِنُ كَيْدِ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ
Such is the case, and [know] that Allah undermines the stratagems of the faithless.
إِن تَسْتَفْتِحُوا۟ فَقَدْ جَآءَكُمُ ٱلْفَتْحُ ۖ وَإِن تَنتَهُوا۟ فَهُوَ خَيْرٌۭ لَّكُمْ ۖ وَإِن تَعُودُوا۟ نَعُدْ وَلَن تُغْنِىَ عَنكُمْ فِئَتُكُمْ شَيْـًۭٔا وَلَوْ كَثُرَتْ وَأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَعَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
If you sought a verdict, the verdict has certainly come to you; and if you cease [your belligerence against the Prophet and his followers], it is better for you, but if you resume, We [too] shall return and your troops will never avail you though they should be ever so many, and [know] that Allah is with the faithful.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Sources present (all six non-silent): Ṭabarsī, Majmaʿ al-Bayān [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]; Ṭūsī, al-Tibyān [tusi_al_tibyan]; Baḥrānī, al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]; al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī [qummi]; Ṭabāṭabāʾī, al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan]; An Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary]. The four Arabic sources were fetched and translated here; al-Mīzān was rendered from its verified Arabic (its English is image-served). Apparatus and repeated isnāds are condensed with disclosure; full Arabic is preserved in each original_ar.
What the passage says. The sūra opens in the aftermath of Badr with a question about the anfāl (spoils), answered by vesting them in "God and the Messenger" and commanding piety, the mending of mutual relations, and obedience (1). It then portrays the true believers — trembling hearts, increasing faith, trust, prayer, charity — and their reward (2–4); recalls the reluctant march out of Medina and the dispute over engaging the armed host rather than the caravan (5–8); rehearses the divine aid at Badr — the answered cry for help, the thousand angels, the steadying slumber and rain, the casting of terror, the command to the angels (9–14); forbids flight (15–16); and affirms that the killing and the throwing were ultimately God's, that He undoes the disbelievers' guile, and that the verdict has come (17–19).
The spoils and their ownership. All four Imāmī sources converge, against the merely "booty of Badr" reading, on the Imams' definition of anfāl. [qummi] (from al-Ṣādiq via Isḥāq b. ʿAmmār) and [bahrani_al_burhan] (a chain of al-Kāfī narrations) give the fullest fiqh: ruined and ownerless lands, jizya-land not taken by force, mines, royal fiefs, and the estate of one who dies with no heir or patron — all "for God and the Messenger, and for the Imam after him." [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] report the same sound tradition from al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq and note the Ahl al-Bayt reading yasʾalūnaka l-anfāl (without ʿan). [tabatabai_al_mizan] reaches a complementary result from the siyāq: the command "set right what is between you" shows a real quarrel over the spoils lay behind the question — a reading the Enlightening Commentary frames historically as the post-Badr argument among those who fought, those who pursued, and those who guarded the Prophet. Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī judge the verse not abrogated by the khums verse (41); al-Qummī simply sequences them (1 then 41).
The believers and their hearts. On 2–4, [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] distinguish the wajal (tremor) of the heart at God's justice from the iṭmiʾnān (rest) at His mercy (Q 13:28), and use the verse in the classical debate over whether faith admits increase, concluding it describes the elite of the believers. [qummi] and [bahrani_al_burhan] add the distinctive Imāmī occasion: the verse was revealed concerning ʿAlī, Abū Dharr, Salmān and al-Miqdād.
The battle and its divine causality. For 5–14 the narrative sources — [qummi] most vividly (Abū Sufyān's caravan, ʿĀtika's dream, the 313, the spies, the purifying rain) — supply the sīra, while [tabatabai_al_mizan] does the harmonising work, mapping the "thousand angels who bring others in train" onto the three- and five-thousand of Q 3:123–126. [tusi_al_tibyan] draws the theological lesson that God's willing "to verify the truth" refutes the determinists who ascribe all falsehood to His will; [bahrani_al_burhan] preserves an inward (bāṭin) taʾwīl in which "His words" is ʿAlī and the "root of the disbelievers" to be cut is the Umayyads, consummated by the Qāʾim — and reads the purifying "water" of v.11 as the walāya of ʿAlī. On 15–17 all sources forbid flight from battle; [tabatabai_al_mizan] insists the prohibition is general (one of the mortal sins, converging with the Sunnī "seven destroyers"), and explains 17 ("you did not slay… you did not throw") as God affirming the very act He negated — the supernatural character of Badr, where a tiny, ill-armed band routed a far greater host. [qummi] literalises it: the angels did the slaying, and the "throw" was the Prophet's handful of gravel with shāhat al-wujūh. The passage closes (19) — in Ṭabarsī's and al-Qummī's reading of Abū Jahl's own prayer for the "truer" party — with the verdict turned against the aggressors: "if you cease, it is better for you."