Con­text and Rel­e­vance : Sūra At-Taw­bah Reexamined

Sūrat-ut-Taw­bah, the 9th chap­ter of the Qur’an, was revealed approx­i­mate­ly 15 months before the Prophet’s ^(P) demise. This chap­ter marks a sig­nif­i­cant piv­ot in the Islam­ic nar­ra­tive, reflect­ing a shift from pre­vi­ous poli­cies toward a more direct approach in deal­ing with aggres­sion and treaty vio­la­tions. Pri­or to this rev­e­la­tion, Mus­lims adhered to a pol­i­cy that empha­sized indi­vid­ual respon­si­bil­i­ty and non-retal­i­a­tion in the face of false accu­sa­tions. The guid­ing prin­ci­ple was encap­su­lat­ed in the direc­tive from Qur’an 10:41, ​“If they charge thee with false­hood, say : my work to me, and yours to you. You are free from respon­si­bil­i­ty for what I do, and I for what ye do!” This verse under­scored a phi­los­o­phy of tol­er­ance and patience, where the focus was on per­son­al integri­ty and the avoid­ance of con­flict despite provocation.

This approach, how­ev­er, was met with con­tin­u­ous chal­lenges as the ear­ly Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty faced repeat­ed acts of treach­ery and hos­til­i­ty from cer­tain fac­tions among the poly­the­ists. The per­sis­tent breach­es of peace and secu­ri­ty prompt­ed a reassess­ment of strate­gies, ulti­mate­ly lead­ing to the rev­e­la­tions con­tained in Sūrat-ut-Taw­bah. These rev­e­la­tions addressed the need for a more assertive stance against those who repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed their treaties and com­mit­ted acts of aggres­sion against the Mus­lims, set­ting a new prece­dent for the defense of the com­mu­ni­ty and the main­te­nance of justice.

Pol­i­cy and Response to Polytheists

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 Sūra At-Taw­bah declares war against all unbe­liev­ers and quote ​“fight the Pagans all togeth­er” with­out com­plet­ing the pas­sage ​“as they fight you all togeth­er” (Qur’an 9:36).

Also in the fol­low­ing say­ing ​“God and His Mes­sen­ger dis­solve (treaty) oblig­a­tions with the Pagans” (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” (Qur’an 9:4)

It is deci­sive­ly clear that the war was against cer­tain peo­ple who vio­lat­ed the treaties with Mus­lims and aid­ed their ene­mies. Are we to be blamed for fight­ing such people ?

Pro­tect­ing Non-Com­bat­ants in Sūra at-Tawbah

This sub­se­quent note is par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­cial as it address­es the poten­tial impact of con­flict on inno­cents. Dur­ing the enforce­ment of jus­tice against trans­gres­sors, there invari­ably arise sit­u­a­tions where indi­vid­u­als unin­volved in the hos­til­i­ties are caught in the midst of con­flict. These indi­vid­u­als, often civil­ians, nei­ther have the inten­tion to fight nor the desire to engage in any form of con­flict. Rec­og­niz­ing their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and inno­cence, Islam­ic teach­ings specif­i­cal­ly pro­vide guid­ance on pro­tect­ing such indi­vid­u­als, under­scor­ing the humane approach dur­ing warfare.

The Quran explic­it­ly address­es this in Sūrat-ut-Taw­bah : ​“If one amongst the Pagans asks 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“¹. This verse not only empha­sizes the pro­vi­sion of safe­ty to those seek­ing refuge but also high­lights the impor­tance of offer­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for under­stand­ing and dia­logue. By grant­i­ng asy­lum and ensur­ing their safe­ty, Islam demon­strates a com­mit­ment to pro­tec­tion and edu­ca­tion, rather than persecution.

This direc­tive chal­lenges the mis­per­cep­tions of unpro­voked assault with­in the con­text of Islam­ic teach­ings. It clar­i­fies that the actions tak­en are not indis­crim­i­nate but are guid­ed by prin­ci­ples that pri­or­i­tize mer­cy and the safe­guard­ing of human life, even in times of war. This approach is a tes­ta­ment to the nuanced under­stand­ing of con­flict and the val­ue placed on every human life, align­ing actions with moral and eth­i­cal stan­dards that dis­tin­guish between com­bat­ants and non-combatants.

So where is the unpro­voked assault in this context ?

Covenants and Consequences

Let us explore more in Sūra At-Taw­bah, 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” (Qur’an 9:2).

This means that the term of four months is not out of weak­ness, so do not be deceived by what you per­ceive as your pow­er. More­over, Sūra At-Taw­bah 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” (Qur’an 9:7)

We are sin­cere with those who keep their covenants. How­ev­er, 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 feared the con­se­quences of this atti­tude, real­iz­ing that their pow­er­ful ene­mies trans­gressed with­out respect. The Qur’an addressed this fear and urged Mus­lims to fight : ​“fight ye the chiefs of unfaith : for their oaths are noth­ing to them : that thus they may be restrained” (Qur’an 9:12).

Then the tone becomes stronger, incit­ing 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!” (Qur’an 9:13).

Dur­ing the course of fol­low­ing Sūra At-Taw­bah, 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” (Qur’an 9:14).

Do you find in this con­text any assault against peace­ful peo­ple ? Indeed, describ­ing Sūra At-Taw­bah as a change in Mus­lims’ pol­i­cy indi­cates noth­ing but stark igno­rance on the part 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.

One com­mon point of con­tention aris­es from a per­ceived con­tra­dic­tion with­in Sūra at-Taw­bah regard­ing the obser­vance of treaties. Ini­tial­ly, the Sūra acknowl­edges and com­mands respect for the treaties with groups that remain faith­ful to their com­mit­ments. How­ev­er, a shift occurs in verse 10, which states that some do not hon­or these treaties, ​“They respect nei­ther ties of rela­tion­ship nor covenant in the case of a believ­er. They are the trans­gres­sors.” This is not indica­tive of a con­tra­dic­tion with­in the Qur’an but rather high­lights the dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed approach towards var­i­ous groups. The Sūra address­es both allies who main­tained their agree­ments and adver­saries who breached them. This dis­tinc­tion empha­sizes the prin­ci­ple of reci­procity and jus­tice : main­tain­ing peace with those who uphold their treaties and tak­ing a defen­sive stance against those who break them. This nuanced approach address­es the com­plex­i­ties of real-world polit­i­cal and social rela­tion­ships dur­ing the Prophet’s time, under­scor­ing the impor­tance of con­text in under­stand­ing the Sūra’s directives.

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 Makkah 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.

Islam­ic Rela­tions with Chris­tians and Romans

Now, we deal with atti­tude of Islam toward Chris­tian­i­ty and Chris­tians. Since the ear­ly days of Islam, Chris­tians used to come to Makkah, 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 Makkah. Also, Muham­mad ^(P) was the only per­son on face of the earth who pre­dict­ed vic­to­ry of Romans over Per­sians after their mas­sive defeat².
• Despite this friend­ship with Chris­t­ian peo­ples, Islam was explic­it in its denial of the Trin­i­ty and rejec­tion of divin­i­ty of Jesus ^(P) and Gabriel. Rev­e­la­tions in Makkah 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 regard Popes and Bish­ops as mere humans. 

In Islam, God is one and only, eter­nal, absolute, nei­ther beget­ting nor 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 took place at Mu’­ta³, involv­ing 3,000 Mus­lim sol­diers and 200,000 Roman sol­diers. This rais­es the ques­tion : were the Mus­lims real­ly seek­ing con­flict ? Dur­ing this bat­tle, three gen­er­als from the Mus­lim army were killed.

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. Were they then ready, at any lev­el, to accept the Islam­ic creed ? Indeed, Islam was fight­ing for reli­gious free­dom. When Sūrat-ut-Taw­bah 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” (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” (Qur’an 9:24)⁴

The Quin­tes­sence of Sūra at-Tawbah

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.” (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.“⁵

One reads the begin­ning of Sūra At-Taw­bah 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 :

الحرب لرد الحقوق شريعتكم
فالدواء يستخرج من أندى السموم
War for return­ing rights is your law,
For med­i­cine is derived from most dead­ly poisons.

But at 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.” (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!”” (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.

1. Qur’an 9:6[↩]
2. Qur’an 30:2 – 4[↩]
3. Mu’­ta is locat­ed in what is now the King­dom of Jor­dan. It is known his­tor­i­cal­ly for the Bat­tle of Mu’­ta, which took place in 629 AD. This bat­tle was one of the first major con­flicts between the ear­ly Mus­lims and the Byzan­tine Empire.[↩]
4. 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[↩]
5. 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[↩]