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Sc., "yourselves and your whole society". With this and the next verse the discourse returns to, and elaborates, the idea touched upon in verse {10} and explained in note [11].
Cf. xxiv. 10 above. It was Allah's mercy that saved them from many evil consequences, both in this life and in the Hereafter, -in this life, because the Prophet's wise measures nipped in the bud any incipient estrangement between those nearest and dearest to him, and from a spiritual aspect in that the minor agents in spreading the scandal repented and were forgiven. No doubts and divisions, no mutual distrust, were allowed to remain in their hearts after the whole matter had been cleared up.