Four Advices to Finish

To close the sūrah, Allah (swt) gives four counsels. The last āyah of the sūrah, verse 200, offers a few counsels after all that has gone before — after the account of the battle and everything connected with it:

This is for everyone. O you who believe, exercise patience. Patience is the ingredient of life; without patience we shall not survive. One must have patience. Even to pray ṣalāh and to fast is an aspect of patience — of perseverance. Wa-ṣābirū. So iṣbirū wa-ṣābirū: two different things are mentioned here, ṣabr and muṣābarah. Muṣābarah is patience that must be exercised in the face of another, where one is under compulsion — in the face of one's enemy, in the face of difficulty, in the face of an attack from Islamophobes, for example. Ṣābirū: mutually assisting one another in that patience as well; for when one person is patient in the right way, and does not give up, it helps a great many others.

Wa-rābiṭū. Rābiṭū means to prepare, and to guard one's borders. In the West that would mean guarding oneself against becoming prey to the various kinds of attack, and also being equipped to deal with the great deal of Islamophobic propaganda that is abroad. The last counsel is wa-ttaqū Allāh: have taqwā, fear Allah, so that you may gain success — tufliḥūn, so that you may succeed. The word falāḥ, tufliḥūn — as opposed to tafūzūn, fawz — falāḥ means a success after which there is no failure; a closeness to Allah after which there is no distance. It is the ultimate success. That is:

That is falāḥ. It is success of a very high order. And with that, Sūrat Āl ʿImrān is concluded.