Hes­ham Azmy

Surat-ul-Tau­ba, which is the 9th Chap­ter of the Qur’an, was revealed 15 months before the Prophet’s(P) demise. Before its rev­e­la­tion, Mus­lims used to fol­low a very wise pol­i­cy, that is If they charge thee with false­hood, say : my work to me, and yours to you ye are free from respon­si­bil­i­ty for what I do, and I for what ye do!” (Holy Qur’an 10:41).

But the poly­the­ists were not sat­is­fied with this pol­i­cy and they did not refrain from treach­er­ous acts against Mus­lims, that was why the com­mand to pun­ish these groups came, and this is the dis­charge from God and His Apos­tle. Mis­sion­ar­ies con­cen­trate upon a piece of verse and ignore the rest of the pas­sage. For exam­ple, they claim that the Sura declared war against all unbe­liev­ers and quote fight the Pagans all togeth­er” with­out com­plet­ing the pas­sage as they fight you all togeth­er” (Holy Qur’an 9:36).

Also in the fol­low­ing say­ing God and His Mes­sen­ger dis­solve (treaty) oblig­a­tions with the Pagans” (Holy Qur’an 9:3). Some went to inter­pret it to mean all the Pagans ignor­ing the next excep­tion and note.

First there is an excep­tion “(But the treaties are) not dis­solved with those Pagans with whom ye have entered into alliance and who have not sub­se­quent­ly failed you in aught, nor aid­ed any one against you. So ful­fil your engage­ments with them to the end of their term : for God loveth the right­eous” (Holy Qur’an 9:4)

It is deci­sive­ly clear that the war was against cer­tain peo­ple who failed Mus­lims’ treaties and aid­ed oth­ers against them. Are we to be blamed for fight­ing such people ?

And the next note is very impor­tant, because dur­ing the process of pun­ish­ing the trans­gres­sors, some inno­cent peo­ple who have noth­ing to do with war would appear. They did not want to fight, nor did they seek it. That was why the com­mand came to secure them.

If one amongst the Pagans ask thee for asy­lum, grant it to him, so that he may hear the word of God ; and then escort him to where he can be secure. That is because they are men with­out knowl­edge” (Holy Qur’an 9:6).

So where is the unpro­voked assault in this con­text ? Let us explore more in the Sura, Islam gave the Pagans four months in order to re-con­sid­er and fix themselves :

Go ye, then, for four months, back­wards and for­wards, (as ye will), through­out the land, but know ye that ye can­not frus­trate God (by your false­hood) but that God will cov­er with shame those who reject Him” (Holy Qur’an 9:2).

This means that the term of four months is not out of weak­ness, so do not be fooled by your alleged pow­er. More­over, the Sura’ says :

How can there be a league, before God and His Mes­sen­ger, with the Pagans, except those with whom ye made a treaty near the Sacred Mosque ? As long as these stand true to you, stand ye true to them : for God doth love the right­eous” (Holy Qur’an 9:7)

We are sin­cere with those who keep their covenants, but those who trans­gress the lim­its and act treach­er­ous­ly have no covenants with us, since they did not keep their treaties, we do not keep them.

It seems that Mus­lims were afraid from the con­se­quences of this atti­tude and real­ized that their ene­mies are pow­er­ful, and their pow­er is what made them trans­gress with­out respect for Mus­lims. The Qur’an dis­liked this fear and pro­voked Mus­lims to fight : fight ye the chiefs of unfaith : for their oaths are noth­ing to them : that thus they may be restrained” (Holy Qur’an 9:12). Then the tone gets stronger to pro­voke Mus­lims against trai­tors and assailants :

Will ye not fight peo­ple who vio­lat­ed their oaths, plot­ted to expel the Mes­sen­ger, and took the aggres­sive by being the first (to assault) you ? Do ye fear them ? Nay, it is God Whom ye should more just­ly fear, if ye believe!” (Holy Qur’an 9:13).

Dur­ing the course of fol­low­ing the Sura’, one dis­cov­ers that those whom Mus­lims are com­mand­ed to fight were not peo­ple of peace and trust, and they used to abuse and insult Mus­lims for a long time and they hurt them in the long run.

Fight them, and God will pun­ish them by your hands, cov­er them with shame, help you (to vic­to­ry) over them, heal the breasts of Believ­ers” (Holy Qur’an 9:14).

Do you find in this con­text any assault against peace­ful peo­ple ? Indeed, the descrip­tion of this Sura’ as a change in Mus­lims ? pol­i­cy indi­cates noth­ing but stark igno­rance of the claimant. Mus­lims remain the same : we are peace­ful with who­ev­er is peace­ful with us and fight who­ev­er fights us. We still preach our Faith with nice speech and beau­ti­ful exhor­ta­tion with­out accept­ing humiliation.

Before mov­ing on, it is note­wor­thy to know that Pagans in Ara­bia quick­ly embraced Islam and no one wait­ed until the end of four months’ grace peri­od. In order to under­stand this rapid col­lapse of Pagan­ism, one should recall the sta­tus of Mec­ca as the cap­i­tal and spir­i­tu­al cen­ter of Ara­bia. When it was con­vert­ed into a pure­ly Islam­ic city and the Pagans were pre­vent­ed from attend­ing it, they found that their idol­a­trous prac­tices are no longer valid and so they embraced Islam, Pure Monothe­ism, with­out hesitation.

Now, we deal with atti­tude of Islam toward Chris­tian­i­ty and Chris­tians. Since the ear­ly days of Islam, Chris­tians used to come to Mec­ca, then to Mad­i­nah in order to lis­ten to the new Rev­e­la­tion. Some embraced Islam and some dis­cussed Islam­ic rejec­tion of Jesus’ (P) divin­i­ty despite the great respect and rev­er­ence of Mus­lims to him. Islam nev­er felt threat­ened by Chris­tians of Yemen or oth­ers, but the threat came from the Roman Empire in the north.

Here, we would like to draw atten­tion to two points :

  • Islam was (and still) a friend for Chris­tians and the Prophet (peace be upon him) ordered his fol­low­ers with migra­tion to Abyssinia (i.e. Ethiopia) when they were per­se­cut­ed in Mec­ca. Also, Muhammad(P) was the only per­son on face of the earth who pre­dict­ed vic­to­ry of Romans over Per­sians after their mas­sive defeat (Qur’an 30:2 – 4). 
  • Despite this friend­ship with Chris­t­ian peo­ples, Islam was explic­it in its denial of the Trin­i­ty and rejec­tion of divin­i­ty of Jesus (P) and Gabriel. Rev­e­la­tion in Mec­ca and Mad­i­nah con­firmed this view and asked fol­low­ers of the Christ (P) to cor­rect their beliefs, wor­ship God alone with­out part­ners, fol­low the divine Law and equate Popes and Bish­ops with oth­er creatures. 

God in Islam is One and Only, Eter­nal, Absolute, nev­er begets, nev­er has been begot­ten and there is none like unto Him. Roman Empire shut its doors before Islam and used its army to pre­vent Islam­ic teach­ings from reach­ing its lands. The first bat­tle was at Mu’­ta between 3.000 Mus­lim sol­diers and 200.000 Roman sol­diers (were Mus­lims real­ly look­ing for trou­ble?), and three gen­er­als of the Mus­lim army were killed in this battle.

To be more explic­it, Romans per­se­cut­ed the Church of Arius who said that Jesus is a crea­ture not Cre­ator. They per­se­cut­ed East­ern Church­es and con­sid­ered them heretics’ as well. Was they then ready, at any lev­el, to accept Islam­ic creed ? Indeed, Islam was fight­ing for reli­gious free­dom. When Surat-ul-Tau­ba was revealed, hos­til­i­ty was already estab­lished between the new Islam­ic State and mighty Roman Empire. In that time, Roman Empire was on top of the world after its tremen­dous vic­to­ry over Per­sian Empire while Mus­lims were only a small por­tion of Arabs and the rest of Arabs were allies either to the Romans or to the Persians.

The com­mand of fight­ing the Romans fright­ened many Mus­lims who feared its con­se­quences, which was why the Qur’an came to rebuke them :

O ye who believe what is the mat­ter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling heav­i­ly to the earth ? Do ye pre­fer the life of this world to the Here­after ? But lit­tle is the com­fort of this life, as com­pared with the Here­after” (Holy Qur’an 9:38)

Say : if it be that your fathers, your sons, your broth­ers, your mates, or your kin­dred ; the wealth that ye have gained ; the com­merce in which ye fear a decline : or the dwellings in which ye delight- are dear­er to you than God, or His Mes­sen­ger, or the striv­ing in His Cause- then wait until God brings about His Deci­sion : and God guides not the rebel­lious” (Holy Qur’an 9:24)For more detailed under­stand­ing, we rec­om­mend the book Jour­ney Through The Qur’an — The Con­tent and Con­text of the Suras” by Muham­mad Al-Ghaz­a­li, pub­lished by Dar Al Taqwa Ltd ; 7A Mel­combe Street, Lon­don NW1 6AE

Last­ly, com­ing to the most quot­ed verse by Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies and polemicists :

But when the for­bid­den months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wher­ev­er ye find them, and seize them, belea­guer them, and lie in wait for them in every strat­a­gem (of war); but if they repent, and estab­lish reg­u­lar Prayers and prac­tise reg­u­lar Char­i­ty, then open the way for them : for Allah is Oft-For­giv­ing, Most Mer­ci­ful.” (Holy Qur’an 9:5)

I have already shown that the pagans meant here are those who had bro­ken their covenants with Mus­lims after exclu­sion of those who kept their covenants (Qur’an 9:4) and those who sought peace (Qur’an 9:6). Abdul­lah Yusuf Ali wrote in his com­men­tary on this verse, that

When war is inevitable, it must be pros­e­cut­ed with vigour. Accord­ing to the Eng­lish phrase, you can­not fight with kid gloves. The fight­ing may take the form of slaugh­ter, or cap­ture, or siege, or ambush and oth­er strat­a­gems. But even then there is a room for repen­tance and amend­ment on the part of the guilty par­ty, and if it takes place, our duty is for­give­ness and the estab­lish­ment of peace.“Abdul­lah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an Text, Trans­la­tion and Com­men­tary”, Pub­li­ca­tions of Pres­i­den­cy of Islam­ic Courts and Affairs, Qatar, Copy­right­ed 1946 by Khalil Al-Rawaf, p. 439

One reads the begin­ning of the Sura and its end with won­der­ment ! It begins with dis­solv­ing treaties with evil-doers and trai­tors and ends with remind­ing peo­ple with God’s Mer­cy for send­ing the Prophet of peace and war. He is a war­rior prophet stand­ing with arms against those who hold arms, as the famous Egypt­ian poet, Ahmad Shawqi said :

War for return­ing rights is your law,
For med­i­cine is derived from most dead­ly poisons. 

But in the same time, he (P) seeks peace in every inch of land, removes dust from every face and lifts bur­dens of each ago­nized person.

Now hath come unto you a Mes­sen­ger from amongst your­selves : it grieves him that ye should per­ish : ardent­ly anx­ious is he over you : to the Believ­ers is he most kind and mer­ci­ful.” (Holy Qur’an 9:138)

He did not fight out of love for war, but out of dis­like for mis­chief and trans­gres­sion. So, if jus­tice is guar­an­teed, free­dom pre­vails and rights are observed, then none seeks war but a crim­i­nal. This is why the Sura was sealed with the fol­low­ing verse :

But if they turn away, say : God suf­ficeth me : there is no god but He : on Him is my trust- He is the Lord of the Throne (of Glo­ry) Supreme!”” (Holy Qur’an 9:139)

And this is the same Sura’ that is claimed to have declared war against non-Muslims !

And to God is the deci­sion in all affairs. Insights Into Sura' At-Tauba 1


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One response to “Insights Into Sura’ At-Tauba”

  1. Liaquat Samma Avatar
    Liaquat Samma

    Dear Sir

    I’d like to agree with the arti­cle’s gen­er­al con­clu­sions. They are well tak­en. But I’d like to add that the rea­son for rev­e­la­tion giv­en is wrong because the sources are not giv­en. The text points out that some pagan Arabs who were poly­the­ists vio­lat­ed the agree­ment they had with the mus­lims of that time. Hence God com­mand­ed and­de­s­olved the teaty Mus­lims had with them. They were giv­en 4 mon­th’s to either repent and keepthe treaty by fol­low­ing it or tobe ready for open war with them.

    Verse 9:5 is also not very well and clear­ly explained in the arti­cle. Its intend­ed mean­ing is that if they repent their VIOLATION OF THE TEATY, Always Fol­low (aqaa­mus salaat)it,and give it growth by act­ing fruit­ful­ly, they should be left free to go on their OWN WAY of life (sabeeli hum ), oth­e­wise they will have to face war. This implies that they will have free­dom of reli­gion as well as peace if they observe the terms of the treaty sin­cere­ly. In this inter­pre­ta­tion, all the words are well relat­ed and well orga­nized in thought expres­sion. Also because the next vers­es clear­ly point out that they WERE STILL POLYTHEISTS and when they would come toMus­lims, they willbe respect­ed and returned to their homes and the Quran would be recit­ed tothem for con­sid­er­a­tion and accep­tance if they chose to do so.

    Thus it shows that Islam­gives them free choice and pro­tec­tion if they fol­low the treaty. The oth­ers who­fol­lowed their agree­ments were left in peace. The prob­lemis that peo­ple don’t read the Quran in contexxt.

    Liaquat Sam­ma