And why when distress befell you at Uhud when seventy of you were slain and you had afflicted twice the like of it at Badr slaying seventy of them and taking another seventy captive did you say in amazement ‘How is this?’ that is how did this defeat happen to us when we are Muslims and God’s Messenger is among us the last statement annā hādhā ‘how is this?’ constitutes the locus of the interrogative of denial. Say to them ‘It is from yourselves because you abandoned your battle stations and were thus defeated. Surely God has power over everything’ including the giving of assistance and the withholding of it and He requited you for your disputing the Prophet’s command.
