Qur’an­ic Com­men­tary on Sura’ An-Nis­sa’ (4):89

Recent­ly, we hear Chris­tians mak­ing strange claims about Sura’ An-Nis­sa’ (4):89, by say­ing that it is a verse meant to be applied as a pun­ish­ment for apos­tates. The said verse is as follows

They long that ye should dis­be­lieve even as they dis­be­lieve, that ye may be upon a lev­el (with them). So choose not friends from them till they for­sake their homes in the way of Allah if they turn back (to enmi­ty) then take them and kill them wher­ev­er ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them.

But who are they being referred to in the verse above ? The pre­vi­ous verse had the answer.

“What aileth you that ye are become two par­ties regard­ing the hyp­ocrites, when Allah cast them back (to dis­be­lief) because of what they earned ? Seek ye to guide him whom Allah hath sent astray ? He whom Allah sendeth astray, for him thou (O Muham­mad) canst not find a road.” (Qur’an 4:88)

It is the hyp­ocrites being referred to (not apos­tates as insin­u­at­ed by Chris­tians) and in deal­ing with those who pre­tend to be Mus­lims on the out­side, but are the ene­mies of Islam in real­i­ty. Such hyp­ocrites are the ones who would aid the pagans against the Mus­lims. So we see the mis­sion­ar­ies’ claims that the verse in Sura’ An-Nis­sa’ (4):89 refers to the pun­ish­ment of apos­tates falls flat on their face. This is fur­ther attest­ed to by Ibn Katheer in this tafseer of the above verse, when he says

And His [God’s] say­ing ​“They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same foot­ing (as they)” means that they (the hyp­ocrites) wish you mis­guid­ance so as to be like them in it ; and this is due only to their great ani­mos­i­ty and hatred towards you, that’s why God said ​“so take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah(meaning left al-hijrah)” as said by Al-Awfy based on Ibn Abbas, and Al-Sad­dy said ​“they showed their kufr, then take them and kill them wher­ev­er you find them, ​“and take no friends or helpers from their ranks” means not to take any of them as allies or seek their sup­port against the ene­mies of Allah as long as they are like this ; then Allah exclud­ed from them.

So, the next ques­tion is : who are the hyp­ocrites ? Hyp­ocrites are those who take the Islam­ic Sha­ha­da (Con­fes­sion of Faith) but do not mean it. They do so on the sole aim of try­ing to cause divi­sion and hatred with­in the Mus­lim ranks. Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing from Sura’ Al-Munafiqun (63):1, as follows :

“When the hyp­ocrites come to thee, they say ​‘We bearth wit­ness that thou art indeed the mes­sen­ger of Allah. Yea, Allah knoweth that thou art indeed his mes­sen­ger, and All?bearth wit­ness that the hyp­ocrites are indeed liars.”

The above verse speaks for itself. Here, God Almighty is describ­ing the hyp­ocrites ; they are the peo­ple who pro­fess the Islam­ic faith but are lying and do not mean it. When the Prophet(P) first migrat­ed to Mad­i­na and preached to the peo­ple there, there were some Jews and pagan Arabs who pro­fess Islam but in fact seek to destroy the faith. Thus, the hyp­ocrites are not syn­ony­mous with apos­tates as Chris­tians are try­ing to claim.

And only God knows best !