Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of The Glorious Koran. An Explanatory Translation (1930)
65. O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you twenty stedfast they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a hundred stedfast they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they (the disbelievers) are a folk without intelligence.
66. Now hath Allah lightened your burden, for He knoweth that there is weakness in you. So if there be of you a stedfast hundred they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a thousand (stedfast) they shall overcome two thousand by permission of Allah. Allah is with the stedfast.
67. It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land. Ye desire the lure of this world and Allah desireth (for you) the Hereafter, and Allah is Mighty, Wise.
68. Had it not been for an ordinance of Allah which had gone before, an awful doom had come upon you on account of what ye took.
69. Now enjoy what ye have won, as lawful and good, and keep your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.1
70. O Prophet! Say unto those captives who are in your hands: If Allah knoweth any good in your hearts He will give you better than that which hath been taken from you, and will forgive you. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
71. And if they would betray thee, they betrayed Allah before, and He gave (thee) power over them. Allah is Knower, Wise.
72. Lo! those who believed and left their homes and strove with their wealth and their lives for the cause of Allah, and those who took them in and helped them: these are protecting
1 vv. 67–69 were revealed when the Prophet had decided to spare the lives of the prisoners taken at Badr and hold them to ransom, against the wish of Omar, who would have executed them for their past crimes. The Prophet took the verses as a reproof, and they are generally understood to mean that no quarter ought to have been given in that first battle.
