| This Surah (Revealed) Medinese, consisting of 13 verses.(Al-Mumtahanah)
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| بِسْم ِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ | |
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Tafseer
O you who believe, do not take My enemy and your enemy, namely, the disbelievers
of Mecca, for friends. You offer, you communicate to, them, the Prophetâs plan (s) to attack them,
which he had confided to you, and had kept secret, at Hunayn, [communicating this to them out of], affection,
between you and them. Hātib b. Abī Baltaâa sent them a letter to that effect, on account of his having
children and close relatives, idolaters, among them. The Prophet (s) intercepted it from the person to whom he
[Hātib] had given it to deliver, after God apprised him of this. Hātibâs excuse for this [conduct of
his] was accepted [by the Prophet]; when verily they have disbelieved in the truth that has come to you,
that is, [in] the religion of Islam and the Qurâān, expelling the Messenger and you, from Mecca, by oppressing
you, because you believe in God, your Lord. If you have gone forth to struggle in My way and to
seek My pleasure â (the response to the conditional is indicated by what preceded, that is to say,
[understand it as being] âthen do not take them as friendsâ). You secretly harbour affection for them, when I know
well what you hide and what you proclaim. And whoever among you does that, that is, to secretly
communicate the Prophetâs news to them, has verily strayed from the right way, he has missed the path of
guidance (originally, al-sawāâ means âthe middle [way]â).
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Tafseer
If they were to prevail over you, they would be your enemies, and would stretch
out against you their hands, to kill and assault you, and their tongues with evil [intent], with
insults and reviling; and they long for you to disbelieve.
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Tafseer
Your relatives and your children, the idolatrous [ones], for whose sake you
secretly communicated the news, will not avail you, against the chastisement in the Hereafter. On the Day of
Resurrection you will be separated (passive yufsalu; or read active yafsilu, âHe will separate youâ) from
them, so that you will be in Paradise, while they will be alongside the disbelievers in the Fire. And God is
Seer of what you do.
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Tafseer
Verily there is for you a good example (read iswa or uswa in both instances,
meaning qudwa) in [the person of] Abraham, in terms of [his] sayings and deeds, and those who were with him,
of believers, when they said to their people, âWe are indeed innocent of you (buraâāâ is the plural of
barīâ, similar [in form] to zarīf, âcharmingâ) and of what you worship besides God. We repudiate you, we disavow
you, and between us and you there has arisen enmity and hate forever (waâl-baghdāâu abadan: pronounce
both hamzas fully, or replace the second one with a wāw) until you [come to] believe in God aloneâ,
except for Abrahamâs saying to his father, âI shall ask forgiveness for you â [this statement is] excepted
from âa [good] exampleâ, so it is not [right] for you to follow his example in this [respect] by asking
forgiveness for disbelievers. As for his saying: but I cannot avail you anything against Godâ â that is, either against
His chastisement or [to secure for you of] His reward â he [Abraham] is using it to intimate [to his father]
that he can do nothing for him other than to ask forgiveness [for him], which [saying] is itself based on that
[former statement] albeit excepted [from it] in terms of what is meant by it, even if on the face of it,
it would seem to be [semantically] part of the [good] example to be followed: Say, âWho can avail
you anything against Godâ [Q. 48:11]; his [Abrahamâs] plea of forgiveness for him was before it became evident
to him that he [his father] was an enemy of God, as mentioned in sūrat Barāâa [Q. 9:114]. âOur Lord, in You
we put our trust, and to You we turn [penitently], and to You is the journeying: these are the words of
the Friend [of God, Abraham] and those who were with him, in other words, they were saying:
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Tafseer
662 Our Lord, do not make us a cause of beguilement for those who disbelieve, that
is to say, do not make them prevail over us, lest they think that they are following the truth and are
beguiled as a result, in other words, [lest] they lose their reason because of us; and forgive us. Our Lord, You are
indeed the Mighty, the Wiseâ, in Your kingdom and Your actions.
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Tafseer
Verily there is for you, O community of Muhammad (s) (laqad kāna lakum is the
response to an implied oath) in them a good example, for those [of you] who (li-man kāna is an
inclusive substitution for âkum [of lakum, âfor youâ] with the same preposition [li-] repeated) anticipate God and
the Last Day, that is, [for those] who fear these two, or who expect reward or punishment. And whoever turns
away, by befriending the disbelievers, [should know that] God is the Independent, [without need] of
His creatures, the Worthy of Praise, to those who obey Him.
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Tafseer
It may be that God will bring about between you and those of them with whom you
are at enmity, from among the disbelievers of Mecca out of [your] obedience to God, exalted be He,
affection, by His guiding them to faith, so that they then become your friends. For God is Powerful,
[able] to do that â and He did do this after the conquest of Mecca â and God is Forgiving, to them of their past
[deeds], Merciful, to them [also].
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Tafseer
God does not forbid you in regard to those who did not wage war against you,
from among the disbelievers, on account of religion and did not expel you from your homes, that you should
treat them kindly (an tabarrūhum is an inclusive substitution for alladhīna, âthose whoâ) and deal
with them justly: this was [revealed] before the command to struggle against them. Assuredly God loves the
just.
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Tafseer
God only forbids you in regard to those who waged war against you on account of
religion and expelled you from your homes and supported [others] in your expulsion, that you should make
friends with them (an tawallawhum is an inclusive substitution for alladhīna, âthose whoâ). And
whoever makes friends with them, those â they are the wrongdoers.
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Tafseer
O you who believe, when believing women come to you, [saying] with their tongues
[that they are], emigrating, from the [company of] disbelievers â [this was] following the truce
concluded with them [the disbelievers] at al-Hudaybiyya to the effect that if any of their number should
go to [join] the believers, that person should be sent back â test them, by making them swear that they had only
gone forth [from Mecca] because of their [sincere] wish to embrace Islam, and not out of some hatred for
their disbelieving husbands, nor because they might be enamoured by some Muslim man: that was how
the Prophet (s) used to take from them their oaths. God knows best [the state of] their faith. Then,
if you know them, if you suppose them, on the basis of their oaths, to be believers, do not send them
back to the disbelievers. They [the women] are not lawful for them, nor are they [the disbelievers] lawful for
them. And give them, that is to say, their disbelieving husbands, what they have expended, on them [on such
women], in the way of dowries. And you would not be at fault if you marry them, on that [previous]
condition, when you have given them their dowries. And do not hold on (read tumassikū or tumsikū) to the
[conjugal] ties of disbelieving women, your wives, for your Islam automatically prohibits you from
this, or [to the ties of] those apostatising women who return to the idolaters, for [likewise] their
apostatising automatically prohibits you from marrying them, and ask for, demand, [the return of] what you have expended,
on these women, of dowries, in the event of apostasy, from those disbelievers to whom they are
married. And let them ask for what they have expended, on those women who have emigrated, as explained above,
that it may be repaid 663 to them. That is Godâs judgement. He judges between you, therewith, and God is
Knower, Wise.
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Tafseer
And if you lose any of your wives, that is to say, [if you lose] one or more of
them â or [it means if you lose] anything of their dowries â by [their] going, to the disbelievers, as
apostates, and so you retaliate, you embark upon a raid and capture spoils [from them], then give those whose
wives have gone, from the spoils, the like of what they have expended, for their having lost it to the
disbelievers. And fear God in Whom you believe. And indeed the believers did what they had been commanded to
do in the way of paying [back] the disbelievers [the dowries of their former wives] and the believers
[the dowries of the women who had apostatised]. Afterwards, however, this stipulation was annulled.
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Tafseer
O Prophet, if believing women come to you, pledging allegiance to you that they
will not ascribe anything as partner to God, and that they will not steal, nor commit adultery, nor slay
their children, as used to be done during the time of pagandom (jāhiliyya), when they would bury new-born girls
alive, fearing ignominy and impoverishment, nor bring any lie that they have invented [originating] between
their hands and their legs, that is, [by bringing] a foundling which they then [falsely] ascribe to the
husband â it [the lie] is described in terms of a real child, because when a woman gives birth to a child, it falls
between her hands and legs; nor disobey you in, doing, what is decent, which is that which concords with
obedience to God, such as refraining from wailing, ripping apart [their] clothes [in grief], pulling out
[their] hair, tearing open the front of [their] garments or scratching [their] faces, then accept their allegiance â
the Prophet (s) did this [but] in words, and he did not shake hands with any of them â and ask God to forgive
them; surely God is Forgiving, Merciful.
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Tafseer
O you who believe, do not befriend a people against whom God is wrathful,
namely, the Jews. They have truly despaired of the Hereafter, of [attaining] its reward â despite their
being certain of its truth, out of obstinacy towards the Prophet, even though they know him to be sincere â just as
the disbelievers have despaired â they [themselves] being â of those who are in the tombs, that is to
say, those who are entombed [and barred] from the good of the Hereafter, for they are shown [both]
their [would-have-been] places in Paradise, had they believed, and the Fire for which they are destined.
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