The tenth verse in the same Sura:
And others await the decisions of God, whether He will punish them, or
whether He will be turned unto them, for God is Knowing, Wise.
is said to have special reference to Ka'b ibn Malik, a warrior, who had
received eleven wounds at Uhud. He was also a poet. He and two of his friends
had no valid reason for not going to Tabuk and their defection set a bad
example. Their conduct could not be passed over in silence. They were
excommunicated for fifty days and prohibited from holding any intercourse with
their wives or families. Then Muhammad, seeing their miserable condition,
relented and this revelation came:
He hath turned Him unto the three who were left behind, so that the earth,
spacious as it is, became too strait for them, and their souls became so
straitened within them, that they bethought them that there was no refuge from
God but unto Himself. Then was He turned to them, that they might be turned to
Him, for God is He that turneth, the Merciful. Sura At-Taubah (ix) 119.
This ninth Sura is the last one, or the last but one, revealed.1
It is fierce and intolerant, and shows how advancing years, instead of mellowing
and softening the temper of the Prophet, only developed his warlike spirit which
loved to receive the supposed divine injunction:
O Prophet! contend against the infidels and the