فَلَمْ تَقْتُلُوهُمْ وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ قَتَلَهُمْ ۚ وَمَا رَمَيْتَ إِذْ رَمَيْتَ وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ رَمَىٰ ۚ وَلِيُبْلِىَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ مِنْهُ بَلَآءً حَسَنًا ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
33:12.
Important Words:
لیبلی (that He might confer). یبلی is derived from ابلا which is derived from بلاء . They say بلاہ or ابتلاہ i.e. he tried, proved or tested him with something good or evil. ابلاہ اللّٰه بلاء حسنا means, God did to him a good deed. ابلیته معروفا means, I conferred upon him a favour or benefit. بلاء means, the act of trying or testing; a trial or a test; an affliction of any kind by which one’s patience or any other virtue is tried or proved or tested; a benefit, favour or blessing; grief; imposition of a difficult or troublesome thing. بلاء حسن means, a great benefit or favour or blessing of God or a good gift of God. الابتلاءsignifies trying, proving or testing with something; seeking and desiring; choosing or selecting (Lane).
Commentary:
The words, So you killed them not, but it was Allah Who killed them, signify that the victory at Badr was not due to any effort on the part of the Muslims; it was purely an act of God. Thus, as enjoined in the preceding verse, there is no justification for Muslims to flee from a battlefield.
The Battle of Badr, fought in the second year of Hijrah, began with single combats; then there was a general attack. At this juncture the Holy Prophet took a handful of pebbles and cast them towards the enemy. That was a token for the help of God to come, just as striking the water of the sea with the rod by Moses was a signal for God’s aid to arrive. When the Holy Prophet cast the pebbles, there rose a strong gale which, blowing directly in the direction of the enemy, blinded their eyes with sand and thus contributed to their discomfiture and the victory of the Muslims. It is to this incident that the words, it was Allah Who threw, refer, hinting that really it was the hand of God, and not the hand of the Prophet, which cast the pebbles, and that the victory was due to the fact that God had come to the help of the Muslims.
The reader should note that while speaking of the Companions of the Holy Prophet in the words, you killed them not, the verse ascribes no act to the Companions, but simply denies their having killed the enemy, whereas in the case of the throwing of the pebbles by the Holy Prophet the verse says, thou threwest not when thou didst throw, but it was Allah Who threw, thus hinting that although victory came from God, yet the Holy Prophet also had a share in the affair. He contributed his share in the form of earnest prayers which drew the help of God.
The throwing of a handful of pebbles and sand by the Holy Prophet bears a remarkable resemblance to the striking of the waters by Moses with the rod. Just as in the latter case the act of Moses was a signal for the wind to blow, which led to the drowning of Pharaoh and his hosts in the sea, similarly, the throwing of a handful of pebbles by the Holy Prophet was a signal for a strong wind to blow which led to the destruction of Abu Jahl (of whom the Holy Prophet spoke as the Pharaoh of his people) and his host in the desert. Again, after the Battle of Badr, the bodies of Abu Jahl and other leaders of the Quraish were cast into the bottom of a pit or an old well, and thus the similarity of the fate of Abu Jahl with that of Pharaoh was completed; for, just as the latter together with his host was drowned into the depths of the sea, so was the former with his comrades cast into the bottom of a well.
The reference in the words, Allah is All-Hearing All-Knowing, is to the prayers of the Holy Prophet which God heard and accepted and in response to which He conferred such a signal victory on the Muslims.
The victory at Badr really was not due to any skill or prowess on the part of the Muslims. They were too few, too weak and too ill-equipped to win a victory against a numerically vastly superior and much better equipped and trained army. The throwing of a handful of pebbles and sand by the Holy Prophet bears a remarkable resemblance to the striking of the waters of the sea by Moses with the rod. Just as in the latter case the act of Moses was, as it were, a signal for the wind to blow and the tide to return which led to the drowning of Pharaoh and his hosts in the sea, so was the throwing of a handful of pebbles by the Holy Prophet a signal for a strong wind to blow, which led to the destruction of Abu Jahl (to whom the Holy Prophet had referred as the Pharaoh of his people) and his host in the desert. In both cases the operation of the forces of nature coincided with the acts of the two Prophets under special Divine decree.