﴿ إِذْ أَنتُم بِٱلْعُدْوَةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَهُم بِٱلْعُدْوَةِ ٱلْقُصْوَىٰ وَٱلرَّكْبُ أَسْفَلَ مِنكُمْ ۚ وَلَوْ تَوَاعَدتُّمْ لَٱخْتَلَفْتُمْ فِى ٱلْمِيعَٰدِ ۙ وَلَٰكِن لِّيَقْضِىَ ٱللَّهُ أَمْرًۭا كَانَ مَفْعُولًۭا لِّيَهْلِكَ مَنْ هَلَكَ عَنۢ بَيِّنَةٍۢ وَيَحْيَىٰ مَنْ حَىَّ عَنۢ بَيِّنَةٍۢ ۗ وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَسَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ ﴾

“[Remember that day] when you were at the near end of the valley [of Badr], and they were at its farthest end, while the caravan was below you. And if you had known that a battle was to take place, you would indeed have refused to accept the challenge: but [the battle was brought about none the less,] so that God might accomplish a thing [which He willed] to be done, [and] that he who would perish might perish in clear evidence of the truth, and that he who would remain alive might live in clear evidence of the truth. And, behold, God is indeed all-hearing, all-knowing.”

When you were on the nearer bank, of the city of knowledge and the locus of the Discriminating intellect, and they were on the yonder bank, that is, in the lower aspect that is remote from the Truth and from the locus of knowledge, while the cavalcade of the distinguished natural faculties mounted upon the ego-centric faculties, was below you, that is, [below] the two parties; and had you agreed to meet, to do battle by means of the intellect and wisdom, instead of by means of spiritual discipline and the unity, you would have surely failed to keep meeting, by virtue of the fact that it would have been difficult in that case, necessarily bringing about failure and cowardice; but that God might conclude a matter that was to be done, [that] was predetermined, ascertained according to Him, whose eventuality was necessary. He did this, so that he who perished might perish after a clear proof, this [proof] being attached to the body that is necessarily perishing and imprinted on it, and so that he who survived might live after a clear proof, this being disengaged from him and conjoined to the world of the Holy, that is the core substance of real life and of everlasting subsistence.