65

O Prophet, urge on, exhort, the believers to fight, the disbelievers. If there be twenty of you, steadfast, they will overcome two hundred, of them. If there be (read as yakun or takun) a hundred of you, they will overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, for they are a people who do not understand (this [sentence] is predicative, but functions as an imperative, in other words, let the twenty of you fight the two hundred [of them], and the hundred [of you], the thousand [of them], and let them stand firm against them; but when they became numerous this was abrogated by Allah’s saying: