26 There seems to be a play, in the original, upon the similarity of the words for injure and ear.
27 Lit. (are) the one from the other.
28 From giving alms.
29 Comp. Sura liv. 15, p. 77. The traditions as to the collection of pitch from wood of the Ark, in the time of Berosus (B.C. 250?) for amulets, and of the wood itself, in the time of Josephus (Ant. i. 3, 6, c. Apion, i. 19) must have reached Muhammad through his Jewish informants. Fragments are said to have existed in the days of Benjamin of Tudela, and to have been carried away by the Chalif Omar, from the mountain al Djoudi to the mosque of Gazyrat Ibn Omar.
30 To kill Muhammad. The circumstances are given in a tradition preserved ap. Weil, p. 265, note. The meaning is, that the people of Medina, who had become enriched by Muhammad's residence among them, had no better motive for disapproving the attempt upon his life. Lit. they had nothing to avenge but that, etc.
31 Prayers for the dead were customary among the Arabians before Muhammad. See Freyt. Einl. p. 221.
32 The Mohadiers were those who fled with Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, the Ansars his auxiliaries in Medina.
33 The commentators are not agreed as to the nature of this double punishment.
34 The fine of a third part of all their substance was imposed upon seven of those who had held back from the expedition to Tabouk. This is the fault spoken of in the preceding verse.
35 The tribe of Beni Ganim had built a mosque, professedly from religious motives, which they invited Muhammad on his way to Tabouk to dedicate by a solemn act of prayer. Muhammad, however, discovered that the real motive of the Beni Ganim was jealousy of the tribe of Beni Amru Ibn Auf, and of the mosque at Kuba, and that there existed and understanding between them and his enemy the monk Abu Amir, who was then in Syria, for the purpose of urging the Greeks to attack the Muslims and their mosque. It is to him that the word irsâdan refers.