﴿ وَلِلَّهِ مُلْكُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۚ يَغْفِرُ لِمَن يَشَآءُ وَيُعَذِّبُ مَن يَشَآءُ ۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ غَفُورًۭا رَّحِيمًۭا ﴾

“But God’s is the dominion over the heavens and the earth: He forgives whomever He wills, and imposes suffering on whomever He wills - and [withal,] He is indeed much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.”

Related Considerations Reference in this passage is to those Bedouin tribes who were invited by Allah's Messenger ﷺ to join the party of 1400 Muslims who were marching to Hudaibiyah but on one pretext or another, they requested to be excused. This was narrated in part [ 1] of the story of Hudaibiyah. According to some versions, some of those people later repented and became sincere Muslims.