وَلَمَّا رَءَا ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ ٱلْأَحْزَابَ قَالُوا۟ هَٰذَا مَا وَعَدَنَا ٱللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُۥ وَصَدَقَ ٱللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُۥ وَمَا زَادَهُمْ إِلَّآ إِيمَٰنًا وَتَسْلِيمًا
Wa lammā raʾa'l-muʾminūna'l-aḥzāba qālū hādhā mā waʿadana'llāhu wa rasūluhu wa ṣadaqa'llāhu wa rasūluh, wa mā zādahum illā īmānan wa taslīmā
"And when the believers saw the confederated groups they said, 'This is what God and His Messenger promised us; God and His Messenger spoke truly.' And it increased them only in faith and in submission."
This verse is the direct counterpart of the twelfth verse, and the correspondence is established at the level of the words. The table was given at the twelfth verse; here I complete it.
| 33/12 | 33/22 | |
|---|---|---|
| The verb | yaqūlu — they were saying | qālū — they said |
| What was seen | The same scene | raʾa'l-muʾminūna'l-aḥzāb |
| The key word | waʿadanā | waʿadanā |
| The verdict | illā ghurūrā — nothing but delusion | ṣadaqa'llāhu wa rasūluh — they spoke truly |
| The outcome | — | mā zādahum illā īmānan wa taslīmā |
The two verses use the same verb (waʿada) and the same two subjects (God and His Messenger). The only thing that differs is the continuation of the sentence.
And this is the strongest datum of the text that the sūra establishes in this section: the difference lies not in the event but in the reading of the event. This is what I recorded as my own reading, and it is completed here.
لَمَّا — a particle of time; generally in the sense "at the moment when something happened", binding two events together.
And the verb is raʾā — they saw. In this section of the sūra the matter of seeing occurs for the third time:
| Verse | The seeing |
|---|---|
| 9 | junūdan lam tarawhā — armies you did not see |
| 10 | zāghati'l-abṣār — the eyes swerved |
| 22 | lammā raʾā al-muʾminūna'l-aḥzāb — when the believers saw |
Three verses, three different states of seeing: help that cannot be seen, a gaze that loses its focus, and a steady gaze. In the twenty-second verse the eye does not swerve; it sees what it sees and frames a sentence.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the distribution of the roots ر-أ-ي and ب-ص-ر within the section.
هَٰذَا — the near demonstrative: "this here". It points to something that could be indicated by hand.
And what is being pointed to is the siege itself. The believers point not to a deliverance but to a danger and say "this is what was promised".
This is the most striking place in the verse and must be read carefully. It can be understood in two ways:
| Reading | What it says | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| The hardship itself had been promised | It had been announced beforehand that difficulty would come; when it came, that was confirmed | The logic of al-Baqara 2/214: "without what came upon those before you coming upon you…" |
| What would come after the hardship had been promised | This hardship is the sign of the promised outcome | The outcome in verse 25 |
The two readings do not exclude one another and the wording of the verse is open to both. I do not impose a preference.
But I record a datum of the text in favour of the first reading: hādhā is the near demonstrative and points to what is present at that moment. What is present at that moment is the siege.
The root ص-د-ق was treated at the seventh verse: truthfulness; and the concrete side of the root, firmness.
And here the root sets up the language of a covenant. The eighth verse had said "so that the truthful may be asked about their truthfulness". In the twenty-second verse the believers use the same root of the other party: ṣadaqa'llāhu wa rasūluh.
That is, within the sūra ṣidq is established as a concept working in both directions: the one who gives the word keeps it, and so does the one who receives it. I record this as my own reading.
This sentence was taken into the list of evidence at al-Fatḥ in the debate over whether faith increases. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat the debate here.
What was recorded there: whether faith increases is one of the oldest debates in the history of theology; the two views and their grounds were given in a table, no side was taken, and it was recorded that the question arises from a difference of definition.
There this further finding was made about this verse, and I bring it over here: "Some of the things that set off the increase are good news and some are bad news. At al-Aḥzāb 33/22 what causes the increase is a threat outright."
A linguistic note on the subjects of the sentence: mā zādahum — the agent of the verb is not named; on the plainest reading the agent is what was seen in the preceding sentence (al-aḥzāb, or the scene generally). That is, what produces the increase is the threat itself.
تَسْلِيم — root س-ل-م. To be sound, to be without flaw; and from this salām, islām, taslīm. The concrete sense of the root is a wholeness — a thing's being complete, without a crack.
And that the word is set beside faith in this verse is worth noting. The two words say two different things:
| Word | What |
|---|---|
| إِيمَان | Assent — accepting that a thing is true |
| تَسْلِيم | Submission — leaving oneself to that acceptance |
And the "wholeness" sense in the root of taslīm closes a ring with the fourth verse: the fourth verse had said that there are not two hearts in one body — that is, indivisibility. Submission is the enacted form of that indivisibility.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the reciprocal position within the sūra of the two roots (the refusal of duality in ق-ل-ب and the wholeness of س-ل-م).