Sublime

except such weak ones among men, women and children, as are incapable of adopting any plan or of finding any way out. 99 God may well pardon them. God is ever-pardoning and ever forgiving.

O you who believe! If you fear Allah, He will grant you a criterion (to judge between right and wrong), remove from you (all) evil (that may afflict) you, and forgive you: for Allah is the Lord of grace unbounded.

Muhammad’s role during those first couple of years in Yathrib was very likely that of a Hakam—albeit a powerful and divinely inspired one—whose arbitration was restricted to the Aws and Khazraj, and whose authority as a Shaykh was confined to his own “clan” of Emigrants: one clan out of many; one Shaykh out of many. Muhammad’s claim to be the

Say, ‘O my people! Go on acting in your way; indeed I am going to act in my way; soon you will know whose end will be best in the Hereafter.’ Surely, the wrongdoers shall not prosper.

Allah is never unjust in the least degree:

But the wrongdoers pursued their worldly pleasures and thus became guilty.

Should you encounter them in war, then deal with them in such a manner that those that follow them should abandon their designs and may take warning. 58 And if you learn of treachery on the part of any people, throw their treaty back at them, so as to be on equal terms, for God does not love the treacherous.

The Arabs of the desert are the worst in Unbelief and hypocrisy,