Al-Anfal 17: (In battle) you did not kill them, but Allah killed them (by means of you). When you threw, it was not you who threw, but it was Allah. And Allah has done this to test the mu’min (believers) (to make them bear witness against themselves) with a gracious trial from Allah’s side. Verily, Allah is Samee (All-Hearing) and Aleem (All-Knowing).

Surah Al-Anfal, verse 17: It was not you who killed them in battle, He says. Yes, that Lord of ours, (?), the Muslim He will help. He will keep His religion standing until the Day of Judgement. The verse 'They (?) to extinguish Allah's light by blowing with their mouths' will come true. But Allah killed them. And when it was thrown, it was not you who threw. But Allah threw it, He says. And He did this to try the believers with a fine trial, to (?) — He did it. Surely Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing, He says. Where? At the Battle of Badr. At the Battle of Badr. Yes.

It was not you who killed them in battle. The intent behind 'It was Allah who killed them' is the Prophet's (peace be upon him) prayer and Allah Almighty's will to complete His light.

What does Allah Almighty say? He will complete His light until the Day of Judgement. What is His light? He will keep the religion of Islam alive. People coming until the Day of Judgement will hear the religion of Islam, and they will come saying, 'You did not let us hear the truth.' Because since Allah Almighty will not call anyone to account in a generation to which He did not convey it, until the Day of Judgement the religion of Islam will live. No one will be able to extinguish the light of the religion of Islam, and those people, by their own Islamic nature, by carrying on their lives outside the Islamic nature, will prove what kind of people they are.

Yes.

This is for Allah Almighty's will — the completion of His light. The obstacle had to be removed. And the Islamic forces were not in possession of a strength to gain superiority over them either. Allah Almighty, as a means, brought the believers out against the army of Quraysh. With the removal of this army and the killing of the leaders of unbelief, He declares that Allah Himself brought about these events; that to complete His light He made the believers the means of their deaths, creating events, and removed them.

Those believers — a handful of believers, against an army of thousands, went out to be tested, went out to be tried. They are tried, but they had submitted to Allah. What does He say, after all? He did it to (?). And when you threw, you did not throw, but Allah threw it. And He did this to try the believers with a fine trial, to (?) — He did it. Surely Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing, He says. Yes, those believers, on their own, even if they were many, did not flee, and at the reckoning they attained Allah's mercy. And the Prophet's saying, 'My companions are like the stars in the sky; whichever of them you (?)' — they attained that verse, that hadith.

Yes.

In the verse where He says 'when you threw, you did not throw, but Allah threw': the Prophet (peace be upon him), because of this army's great number and so that the believers' hearts would be firm, had prayed; in response, by Allah Almighty's command, the Most Noble Messenger and Honoured Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) took a handful of earth from the ground and flung it toward the army of the disbelievers. Yes.

At that moment everything turns to dust and smoke, and the eyes of the polytheist armies can no longer see. So His saying 'you did not throw it, Allah threw it': the miracles of Allah Almighty Himself have appeared. In this case He declares that the miracles came about from His own Self. Indeed, the miracles that appear in prophets, or the wonders that appear in saints, always come about from Allah. Created mortals have no possibility of possessing such a power. Yes. And the angels descending to earth at that time, and according to the verse that says 'strike their necks, strike their fingers', routing them there.

The intent of His saying 'We did these things to try the believers with a fine trial' is that the believers, a small force against a large, crowded army, relied and trusted in Allah; in their stand against the polytheists, Allah Almighty too — the believers thus relying on His Divine Self and, undaunted, against this crowded army standing firm — that the believers passed the trial with a fine trial is what it shows. Their conduct in that way, for the people of the future, as an example to take heed of, as an emblem of lesson, has been described; and they were human, and we are human. What they did and what we do need to be the same — they must, so that we too may join that class of believers or become worthy of those examples.

They are the examples standing before us. Yes, surely Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. Allah is All-Hearing: the stirring in every particle of the universe He hears, and He knows their desires and wishes. According to one narration, after the battle a believer says 'I killed so-and-so', and another believer says 'No, I killed him', and a dispute begins between them; thereupon Allah Almighty sends down this verse. You know, one says 'I killed that one', they say to each other 'I killed him' — when they say that, Allah Almighty says: you did not throw, I threw; you did not kill them, I killed them. Yes.