Those Who Would Have Added Only Trouble

And we know that from the sīrah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). In the battle of Tabūk, the munāfiqūn were coming to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and everyone was giving an excuse to stay behind. I mean, they were inventing excuses. One of them even came and said: O Messenger of Allah, I fear the fitnah of women; I do not want to go with you and fight, because if I see women then I would lose my mind. That is the excuse he gave. He said: please let me stay here. The munāfiqūn were coming to the Messenger of Allah, and everyone was giving an excuse. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) knows that they are munāfiqūn, and he is telling them to stay behind.

Allah (swt) says: wa law arādū al-khurūja la-aʿaddū lahu ʿuddah — if they had been serious that they wanted to fight, they would have found ways to prepare for it. But they are not serious; they do not want to fight; these excuses are fake. If they were serious, if they were true in their intentions to fight — la-aʿaddū lahu ʿuddah — they would have prepared for it. Now they are waiting, waiting until the last moment, and then they come and say: I have business that is not done yet. Allah is saying: if they had wanted to go out, they would have prepared for it early, and they would have been able to go. But Allah did not want them to go out, so Allah (swt) made them stay behind. Allah does not want them to go out with His nabī. Why?

Because Allah (swt) says: if they had gone out with you, they would have caused you nothing but weakness. These soldiers, if they come out with you, O Muhammad (peace be upon him), are going to cause you weakness. Because when the battle starts and the screws are tightened, then they are going to fail. So instead of having a brother next to your side helping you on the battlefield, you are going to have somebody who is putting fear in your heart, telling you: let us run away. So Allah (swt) said: fa-thabbaṭahum — Allah did not want them to go out, and Allah (swt) made them stay behind, because if they went with you, they would cause you nothing but weakness, khabāl.

Ṭālūt did not want this quality of people to come with him; he did not want them in his army. And we know that in the battle of Ḥunayn, because there were many new Muslims in the army — just after the opening of Makkah there were many who had just become Muslim when the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) opened Makkah; that was the largest army the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ever had — one of the Companions looked at this army and said: lan nughlaba al-yawma min qillah — we are not going to lose because of numbers; numbers are not going to be a factor in this war; look at this huge number we have. And what happened in the battle of Ḥunayn? As soon as they received the first blow from the enemy, they were running in every direction. They were running in every direction. Ṭālūt did not want these with him.