بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful
ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ وَصَدُّوا۟ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ أَضَلَّ أَعْمَٰلَهُمْ
Those who are [themselves] faithless and bar [others] from the way of Allah—He has rendered their works fruitless.
وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ وَءَامَنُوا۟ بِمَا نُزِّلَ عَلَىٰ مُحَمَّدٍۢ وَهُوَ ٱلْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّهِمْ ۙ كَفَّرَ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّـَٔاتِهِمْ وَأَصْلَحَ بَالَهُمْ
But those who have faith and do righteous deeds and believe in what has been sent down to Muhammad—and it is the truth from their Lord—He shall absolve them of their misdeeds and set right their affairs.
ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ ٱتَّبَعُوا۟ ٱلْبَٰطِلَ وَأَنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱتَّبَعُوا۟ ٱلْحَقَّ مِن رَّبِّهِمْ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ يَضْرِبُ ٱللَّهُ لِلنَّاسِ أَمْثَٰلَهُمْ
That is because the faithless follow falsehood, and the faithful follow the truth from their Lord. That is how Allah draws comparisons for mankind.
فَإِذَا لَقِيتُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ فَضَرْبَ ٱلرِّقَابِ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَثْخَنتُمُوهُمْ فَشُدُّوا۟ ٱلْوَثَاقَ فَإِمَّا مَنًّۢا بَعْدُ وَإِمَّا فِدَآءً حَتَّىٰ تَضَعَ ٱلْحَرْبُ أَوْزَارَهَا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ وَلَوْ يَشَآءُ ٱللَّهُ لَٱنتَصَرَ مِنْهُمْ وَلَٰكِن لِّيَبْلُوَا۟ بَعْضَكُم بِبَعْضٍۢ ۗ وَٱلَّذِينَ قُتِلُوا۟ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ فَلَن يُضِلَّ أَعْمَٰلَهُمْ
When you meet the faithless in battle, strike their necks. When you have thoroughly decimated them, bind the captives firmly. Thereafter either oblige them [by setting them free] or take ransom, until the war lays down its burdens. That [is Allah’s ordinance]. Had Allah wished He could have taken vengeance on them, but that He may test some of you by means of others. As for those who were slain in the way of Allah, He will not let their works go fruitless.
سَيَهْدِيهِمْ وَيُصْلِحُ بَالَهُمْ
He will guide them and set right their affairs,
وَيُدْخِلُهُمُ ٱلْجَنَّةَ عَرَّفَهَا لَهُمْ
and admit them into paradise, with which He has acquainted them.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِن تَنصُرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ يَنصُرْكُمْ وَيُثَبِّتْ أَقْدَامَكُمْ
O you who have faith! If you help Allah, He will help you and make your feet steady.
وَٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ فَتَعْسًۭا لَّهُمْ وَأَضَلَّ أَعْمَٰلَهُمْ
As for the faithless, their lot will be to fall [into ruin], and He will render their works fruitless.
ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ كَرِهُوا۟ مَآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ فَأَحْبَطَ أَعْمَٰلَهُمْ
That is because they loathed what Allah has sent down, so He made their works fail.
۞ أَفَلَمْ يَسِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَيَنظُرُوا۟ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ ۚ دَمَّرَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ ۖ وَلِلْكَٰفِرِينَ أَمْثَٰلُهَا
Have they not travelled through the land so that they may observe how was the fate of those who were before them? Allah destroyed them, and a similar [fate] awaits these faithless.
ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَوْلَى ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَأَنَّ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ لَا مَوْلَىٰ لَهُمْ
That is because Allah is the protector of the faithful, and because the faithless have no protector.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Triangulating Majmaʿ al-Bayān (Ṭabarsī), al-Tibyān (Ṭūsī), al-Burhān (Baḥrānī), Tafsīr al-Qummī, al-Mīzān (Ṭabāṭabāʾī), and the Enlightening Commentary.
Human-review flags: al-Qummī and al-Burhān read vv. 1–11 through the walāya of ʿAlī and twice use the taḥrīf-adjacent formula "thus it was revealed / Gabriel brought it down thus" (v. 2), with al-Qummī adding that the Name was "erased" at v. 9 — rendered strictly as-attributed, not endorsed. al-Mīzān itself files such glosses under jarī (applying the verse to instances), not textual variance.
What the passage says. The sūra — Medinan by the consensus al-Mīzān affirms, though the Enlightening Commentary's own header calls it Meccan — opens by dividing humankind in two: the disbelievers who bar from God's way, whose works He renders fruitless (v. 1), and the faithful who believe "in what has been sent down to Muhammad," whose misdeeds He absolves and whose affairs He sets right (v. 2), the difference being that one party follows falsehood and the other truth (v. 3). Verses 4–6 give the law of the battlefield — strike the necks, then bind captives, then release by favour or ransom "until the war lays down its burdens" — with the martyrs promised guidance and a Garden already "made known" to them. Verses 7–11 turn the address to the believers: help God and He helps you; ruin awaits the disbelievers, whose predecessors were destroyed; God is the believers' Protector and the disbelievers have none.
How the present sources read it. On the fighting-verse the four Sunni-and-Shīʿī-shared philology converges: Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī both gloss "striking of necks" as killing (the neck being the swiftest death) and "the bond" as captivity after intense subduing, and both lay out the full spread of juristic opinion on abrogation — Qatāda and al-Suddī holding it abrogated by the sword-verse (Tawba 5), Ibn ʿUmar and al-Ḥasan holding it firm because the Prophet both ransomed and executed Badr captives. Both then record the distinctively Imāmī ruling from "the Imams of Guidance": captives taken while war rages may be executed but not ransomed, while those taken after it ends fall to the Imam's fourfold choice — and Islam cancels all of it. al-Mīzān sharpens the logic, denying any true abrogation between this verse and Anfāl 67 (one forbids capture before subduing, the other commands it after) and reading "test some of you by means of others" as a two-way trial of believers and disbelievers alike; on v. 11 it mounts a long analysis of mawlā, arguing the providential walāya that steadies the believers' feet belongs to them alone, the disbelievers' idols being no protectors "in reality."
The Enlightening Commentary supplies the frame the Arabic sources assume: the chapter is "the Chapter of Battle" (Sūrat al-Qitāl), and its opening reproaches the enemies of Islam while promising the believers that all creation becomes the helper of the one God aids. The Imāmī pair carry the polemical weight: Qummī and Baḥrānī both refer v. 1 to "those who apostatised after the Messenger and usurped the right of his Household," preserve ʿAlī's recitation of the verse in the mosque and his exchange with Ibn ʿAbbās over Abū Bakr's succession, and cite the tradition (which al-Mīzān independently reports from ʿAlī via al-Durr al-Manthūr) that "Sūrat Muhammad — a verse concerning us and a verse concerning the Banū Umayya." Baḥrānī adds the ḥadīth of the five swords (the third against the non-Arab polytheists) and ʿAlī's sermon that "jihād is a door God opened for the elect of His friends" — a fitting gloss on "if you help God, He will help you." The paradise-parable of v. 15, shared across Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān, closes the passage: unstaling water, unchanging milk, harmless wine and purified honey, set against the scalding water that severs the bowels of the damned.